Posted February 10

HAVE YOU ever wondered how flexible is this game of cricket? Just look at the variable durations you can play:

• Five days - test cricket
• Four days - first-class cricket
• Three days - minor representative cricket
• Two days - club cricket
• One day - all levels from test to club
• Half day - Cricket Max
• Half an hour before the arguing starts - cricket on the beach

Can there be another sport so varied, so interesting?

It's no wonder the cricket public never tires of its constant state of anxiety over the state of the game in New Zealand. Like it or not, we're cricket mad and we love it. Is it the anglophiliac aspect that draws us to this most complex of games? The English developed cricket as a compromise or sublimate for war, although some of the contests have remained very close to battles.

Cricket battles will continue as long as the game is played. We battle over the place New Zealand holds in the international sphere, yet forget our Number 1 team: the Cricket Max Blacks.

Yes, last page I overlooked our prime international cricketing achievement of this gloriously hot, hot summer - the series win by the Max Blacks over the England Lions. We are top of the world at Cricket Max.

So let's go into the last two seasons of the millennium with hope in our hearts. Hope for the continued progress of the great game of cricket around the world. The use of Cricket Max will take the game out of Anglo-boundaries and into the rest of the world, specially where they now play baseball.

For Cricket Max can provide what baseball lacks, the opportunity for any number of home runs by one batsman in a single innings. It has another prime advantage. Unlike baseball the pitch is important, which introduces the uncertain element. How will it bounce? What will the ball do? Ah, yes, the very alternatives open up an ocean of doubt.

We can agonise over our loss to Australia at Lancaster Park on Sunday, or rejoice over our wins on Zimbabwe previously. The process of agony and ecstasy will go on. We will continue to wallow in it. Hurray for cricket!