Second rate coverage of a first class game

The Plunket Shield - full of history

The Plunket Shield got underway on Saturday with all the hoopla of an Eketahuna calf show. What was once New Zealand Cricket’s domestic flagship has been usurped - left to its own devices.

Mirroring the 2011/12 season, first class cricket in New Zealand is missing a voice on the airwaves, left to make its way on sporadic updates from around the grounds. Cricket is a game steeped in statistical history but it is words, and pictures, that bring it to life. Short score segments tell nothing of the game’s ebb and flow, the breakthrough performances of its emerging talent or the individual battles that hold centre stage in our great game.