Blue skies greet cricketers

Press, 27 May 1983, Page 20

Blue skies greet cricketers

NZPA staff correspondent London There was good news of several varieties waiting for the New Zealand cricket team when it flew into London yesterday at the start of a three-month campaign revolving round the World Cup and a fourtest series against England. The players were greeted by blue skies — virtually the first in a rain-drenched England for nearly 40 days — and later were cheered by the good form shown by their captain, Geoff Howarth, and vice-captain, John Wright, in county matches. Howarth, whose county, Surrey, has been amongst

the worst affected by the wet conditions, scored an elegant 66 against Lancashire. And Wright, who had been sidelined for a short period by a pulled neck muscle, returned to make 39 for Derbyshire against Zimbabwe. The two men had decided to delay joining their New Zealand team-mates until the last possible moment in the hope of getting such batting practice. The rest of the New Zealand team settled quietly into their hotel overlooking Lord’s and some took the opportunity to visit the famous ground to watch Middlesex playing Glamorgan. Today and tomorrow they

will have sessions in the nets there before travelling north to Moseley to play their first World Cup warmup game against Zimbabwe on Sunday (N.Z. time). The New Zealanders will play six warm-up games in just 11 days before they begin the World Cup with a match against England ait the Oval on June 9. New Zealand will be involved in what appears likely to be a close tussle with the Englishmen and Pakistan to be among the two nations which qualify for the semi-finals. Sri Lanka is the minnow which makes up the group.

The New Zealand manager, Sir Allan Wright, said yesterday that the intensive warm-up schedule recog-

nised that most of the team had not played for six weeks as well as the strong possibility that some fixtures would be rain-af-fected. After playing Zimbabwe, New Zealand will play further one-day matches against a Surrey Cricketers’ League team (a benefit for Howarth), Leicestershire, India and Australia as well as a three-day match against the Australians at Arundel. “The main priority in the warm-up games will be to give all our players match play under English conditions,” Sir Allan said. The team to play Zimbabwe will be announced tomorrow.