Cricket, the Brilliant Game! by www.nzcreativewebdesign.com

The New Zealand cricket team, also known as the Black Caps, played their first Test in 1929-30 against England in Christchurch, New Zealand, becoming the fifth Test nation. It took the team until 1955-56 to win a Test, against the West Indies at Eden Park in Auckland. They played their first ODI in the 1972-73 season against Pakistan in Christchurch.

The current Test captain is Daniel Vettori. He replaces the Black Caps' most successful captain, Stephen Fleming who led New Zealand to 28 Test victories, more than twice as many as any other captain. Vettori lost his first match as captain (vs South Africa) by 358 runs, New Zealand's worst ever defeat by runs.
The New Zealand cricket team became known as the Black Caps in January 1998, after its sponsor at the time, Clear Communications, held a competition to choose a name for the team.

As of October 2007, the New Zealand team has played 332 Test matches, winning 18.67%, losing 39.45% and drawing 41.86% of its games.

DOMESTIC TEAMS:
New Zealand Cricket involves the following first-class teams:

·Auckland Aces
·Canterbury Wizards
·Central Districts Stags
·Northern Districts Knights
·Otago Volts
·Wellington Firebirds

CRICKET DEVELOPMENT:
New Zealand Cricket has established High Performance Cricket training centre based at Lincoln University. It also operates a grassroots development programme for school children called 'MILO Kiwi Cricket' . John Wright, former NZ opening batsman, was appointed acting high performance manager for NZC in November 2007.
New Zealand has many private cricket academies and the Bracewell Cricket Academy based at Rathkeale College is one of the largest cricket academies, providing an Overseas Cricket Development Programme, a Pre-Season Coaching Camp, a Festival of Cricket.

There are around 100,000 registered cricketers in New Zealand. By way of comparison, Australia and the U.K. have around 500,000 each. According to Mark O'Neill, New Zealand's batting coach from 2007-09, the competition at club level in NZ is nowhere near as intense as in Australia.

"In Sydney there are 20 first grade teams, each club has five grades. To get to first grade you've got to be a friggin' good player and once you get there the competition is very, very fierce. Unfortunately it's not the same standard [in NZ]. Competition is everything and the only way the New Zealand guys are going to get that is to play the world's best players."

TOURNAMENT HISTORY:

World Cup
·1975: Semi Finals
·1979: Semi Finals
·1983: First round
·1987: First round
·1992: Semi Finals
·1996: Quarter Finals
·1999: Semi Finals
·2003: 5th Place
·2007: Semi Finals

Mini World Cup
·ICC Knockout 1998: Quarter Finals
·ICC Knockout 2000: Won
·ICC Champions Trophy 2002: First round
·ICC Champions Trophy 2004: First round
·ICC Champions Trophy 2006: Semi Finals

Twenty20 World Championship
·2007: Semi Finals

Commonwealth Games
·1998: Bronze medal

World Championship of Cricket
·1985: Fourth

Austral-Asia Cup
·1986: Semi Finals
·1990: Semi Finals
·1994: Semi Finals

TOURNAMENT VICTORIES:
·ICC Knock-Out Trophy Nairobi Gymkhana Club Nairobi Kenya 2000. New Zealand beat India in the final.

·2003 Bank Alfala Series Trophy held in Sri Lanka (New Zealand, Pakistan,Sri Lanka)
·2004 NatWest Series Trophy held in England (West Indies, England,New Zealand).
·2005 Videocon TriSeries held in Zimbabwe (India, Zimbabwe,New Zealand).

WORLD RECORDS:
·Richard Hadlee, one of New Zealand and the world's best all-rounders, took the world record for most Test wickets (374) vs India at Bangalore in 1988. He lost the record to Kapil Dev. Hadlee was the first bowler to reach 400 Test wickets vs India at Christchurch in 1990

·Andrew Jones and Martin Crowe held the highest ever 3rd-wicket partnership in Tests which at the time was the highest partnership for any wicket.

·Brian Hastings and Richard Collinge together scored 151 runs for the highest ever 10th-wicket partnership against Pakistan in 1973.

·Nathan Astle scored Test cricket's fastest ever double century versus England Christchurch 2002. He scored 200 off 153 balls with the second hundred coming off just 39 deliveries. He was eventually out for 222 — the dreaded double Nelson. He knocked the first hundred off 114 balls. Astle smashed the record by 59 balls, previously held by Adam Gilchrist Australia vs South Africa Johannesburg 2002).

·Geoff Allott holds the record for the longest time taken to score a duck. South Africa Auckland 1999. He faced 77 balls in 101 minutes for his zero score.

·Danny Morrison held another "unwanted" record for the most ducks in Test cricket(24)
. He lost the record to Courtney Walsh.

·Chris Cairns and his father Lance Cairns are one of the two father-son combination to each claim 100 Test wickets, South Africa's Peter and Shaun Pollock being the other.

·Chris Cairns held the record for the most Test sixes. He passed Viv Richards record of 84 (vs England, Lord's, London, 2004) and retired from Test cricket with 87. He has since been passed by both Adam Gilchrist (the current record holder) and Brian Lara.

·Chris Harris is the only New Zealand cricketer to have taken 200 wickets in ODIs. (vs England, Lord's, London, 2004). He is only the second player in ODIs to complete the 4000 run / 200 wicket double. (The other is Sri Lankan Sanath Jayasuriya). He holds the record for the most ODI caught and bowled dismissals, with 29.

·Fast bowler Shane Bond holds the best strike rate in the history of One Day International cricket of 26.5 (one player out for every 26.5 balls bowled).

·John Bracewell became the first - and so far only - substitute fielder to take four catches in a One-Day International, vs Australia in Adelaide on 23 November 1980.

·The New Zealand team holds the dubious honour of the record for the most consecutive Test series played without a win - 30 series between 1929-30 and 1969-70 (40 years), comfortably ahead of Bangladesh on 16 series.

·Another unenviable distinction is the largest margin defeat in the Cricket World Cup, by 215 runs, by Australia. (April 2007).

Notable
·New Zealand dismissed Zimbabwe (Harare 2005) twice in the same day for totals of 59 and 99. Zimbabwe became only the second team (after India Manchester 1952) to be dismissed twice in the same day. The whole Test was completed inside two days.

·Daniel Vettori scored NZ's fastest Test century. (vs Zimbabwe Harare 2005). Vettori needed only 82 balls to reach the 100 mark.

·In the same match, he became the third NZ cricketer (after Richard Hadlee and Chris Cairns) to take more than 200 Test wickets.

·Lou Vincent holds the record for the highest one-day cricket innings by a New Zealander of 172 (vs Zimbabwe Bulawayo 2005). The previous best was Glenn Turner 171 not out (vs East Africa Birmingham 1975). Vincent and captain Stephen Fleming broke the New Zealand one-day opening partnership record against all countries. Their total of 204 beat Fleming and Nathan Astle's 193 (vs Pakistan Dunedin 2000-2001). The team total of 397 was just one run short of the then record one-day total of 398 (Sri Lanka vs Kenya Kandy 1996).

·Brendon McCullum scored the fastest World Cup (2007) fifty (off 20 balls) for New Zealand against Canada, beating Mark Boucher's 21-ball record set against the Netherlands six days earlier.

·In a match for the New Zealanders (i.e., the New Zealand national team playing a tour match against non-test opposition) at Scarborough, Yorkshire, in 1986 vs the D.B. Close XI, Ken Rutherford scored 317 runs off just 245 balls, including 228 runs in boundary fours and sixes. In terms of balls faced, this is almost certainly one of the four fastest first-class triple-centuries ever recorded.

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