Buddah's Blog
World Cup about to start
Hey everyone,
This is the third instalment of Buddha’s Blog. The World Cup is about to start and the guys are chomping at the bit to get out on the paddock for what is going to be an amazing World Cup!
We played England the night before last in our last warm up game before the tournament. It was probably one of our better performances of the tour so far, but we were still only at about 70-80% of where we should and could be.
We created a lot more chances but we struggled to finish them off in front of goal. It was frustrating to dominate large parts of the first half and to not score. England scored twice on counter attacks and one corner on full time. We were only able to score the one goal through a well taken Richie “Big Rig” Petherick drag-flick!
We had our last training this morning to sharpen our tools before the tournament starts. It was good as a bit of aggression and mongrel came out in all of the guys. This was a good telling point to show that everyone understands what is just around the corner.
We had the official World Cup opening dinner the other night which was really cool. It finally hit home what’s in front of us with the dinner and seeing the World Cup and all the teams collected together.
We played Back Yard cricket yesterday which was awesome. It was good to get the boys together and more so to be outside where we did something other than hockey. It was tough initially to even get a game as we weren’t allowed to play to start with due to security reasons. But our American Anti-Terrorist Gym trainer sorted that out for us and the World Series of Back Yard Cricket was under way.
Whenever you get the guys together in any sporting arena the smack talk starts almost immediately.
Andy the “Grinch” Hayward probably took out the smack talk mantle which was extremely surprising as he resembled Chris Martin when batting and Nathan McCullum in last nights 20/20 match when bowling. To put it plainly he was the worst player on the pitch.
Congrats to the NZ Boys for the amazing 20/20 victory tonight, Southee and B. McCullum you little beauties. We would invite them to play with us but they might struggle with the pace of the game!
We spilt the guys into 2 teams young vs. old. Of course the oldies pulled off the series win 2 games to 1. Honourable mentions would go to, Dave “Greeny” Green who took out the best fielder award which was impressive for someone who could hardly move!
Best Batsmen went to Pryesh “Pee Wee” Bhana who smacked the top score of the series including 2 solid sixes off the last over to take the oldies score through to 48 off 7 over’s. Deano Couzins was our mainstay batter throughout the innings. The young ones fell 9 runs short in the last game.
Best Bowler went to Richie “Pukeko” Petherick who with his height caused all sorts of problems with the one hand one bounce rule!
We also had a Poker night which is a regular tour event. We have a few seasoned Poker players including our coach and manager. We had 10 players involved with a $5 NZ buy-in but you could pay with any currency. Ryan “Scratchy” Archibald put in $10 Hong Kong dollars, that when Hoppz looked up the value was only $1.80 NZ! Nice one Scratchy.
Nick “Lost in Space” Wilson took out the kitty and the first Poker tournament of the tour!
We’re off to watch Pakistan vs. India tonight which should be an awesome occasion due to the rivalry.
We play tomorrow:
• NZ vs. Canada 4:35pm (India Live)
• NZ vs. Canada 12:05am (NZ Live)
Cheers Shea