prasad1979
Member
- Joined
- 29 Nov 2012
- Messages
- 370
- Reaction score
- 305
Travails of a globe-trotting New Zealand fan..
KIWI FLAG-BEARER | Shaw, 66-year-old accountant from Auckland, has followed Black Caps for 27 years and is yet to see them win a Test in India
A day after New Zealand lost yet another Test on Indian soil, by 178 runs in Kolkata, Sonny Shaw was letting out his frustrations with three other Kiwi supporters.
Shaw, sipping a drink and savouring an ice-cream in a cone, said to his friends, “Sack Ross Taylor ... sack Mike Hesson ... sack Craig McMillan, the batting coach cannot teach his players to play spin,” as Sam Plummer, Ross Sinclair and Rob Baker tried to pacify the 66-year-old.
Shaw is New Zealand’s most widely travelled sports fan. He is on his “eighth sporting tour of India” and seventh cricket tour here – the other one being for the Commonwealth Games in 2010.
He has been following New Zealand Black Caps since 1989. Besides, he has been an ardent New Zealand rugby fan, travelling with the All Blacks wherever they play.
He is yet to watch New Zealand win a Test in India. “It was school boy batting by New Zealand. They played poor cricket. You cannot play off the back foot in India. The Kiwis showed no foot movement. They can’t play spin,” said a disappointed Shaw.
“Another regular feature with the Kiwis is that they lose wicket after a session. Cricket is a mental game.”
Shaw works as an accountant in Auckland six months of the year. The other half year, he follows the New Zealand cricket and rugby teams wherever they play. He funds his own trips and has rejected sponsors several times.
He has travelled to 96 countries – “Trying to get to 100,” he said – including Rio de Janeiro for the 2016 Olympics. “I watched 10 of the 18 medals that New Zealand won in Rio Games,” Shaw said proudly. He has also supported the NZ sailing and yachting teams.
But cricket and rugby are his favourite.
The first Test he watched at a stadium was between his country and the West Indies in Auckland in 1969. “My boyhood hero Garfield Sobers failed and broke my heart,” Shaw recollected. Since then, he has watched 158 Tests besides 459 ODIs including the four cricket World Cups from 2003.
Regarding former West Indies captain Brian Lara, ex-New Zealand captain Stephen Fleming and opener Nathan Astle among his mates, Shaw’s memory is sharp. His first trip as a travelling fan was on the 1989 All Blacks’ rugby tour of Canada, Ireland and Wales.
“On way home, I watched the New Zealand vs Australia cricket match in Perth in which Mark Greatbatch batted for two days to save the Test.”
As flag-bearer of New Zealand, Shaw has invaded the pitch on numerous occasions. “It was fine those days. I did not get caught,” he said, concerned not being able to do it now-a-days due to tight security.
During one such pitch invasion, Shaw remembered: “Lara is a good friend of mine. During the Trinidad One-dayer in 1996, I ran to the middle after he reached his hundred and put a $100 note in his pocket. That night, I was with Fleming and Dipak Patil drinking and someone patted me on my back with a beer in hand. It was Lara and he said ‘let me buy you beer’.”
Shaw rates West Indies, where he has been seven times, and Barbados among the best he has experienced watching cricket.
Shaw is in Indore for the third Test and will return home only after the ODIs, excited about watching an ODI in Dharamsala for the first time.
Does he not get frustrated to be travelling with a team that is losing repeatedly in India? He said: “We have never won a Test series in India and South Africa. Yet, we have to keep going and supporting the team because when it (the win) happens and you are not there, it would be a big miss.”
For Plummer, who flew into Kolkata to watch the Test from Cambodia, where he works, and his friends, it was time to bid farewell to Shaw and catch a flight back home.
For Shaw, with the ice-cream and drink finished, he switched on his tablet and beamed as he looked at his grand daughter’s photos who celebrated her second birthday earlier in the day back home.
A better way to divert Shaw’s mind from the “poor” cricket his team was playing.
Source:
MUMBAI SPORT [PG 14] : Travails of a globe-trotting New Zealand fan
KIWI FLAG-BEARER | Shaw, 66-year-old accountant from Auckland, has followed Black Caps for 27 years and is yet to see them win a Test in India
A day after New Zealand lost yet another Test on Indian soil, by 178 runs in Kolkata, Sonny Shaw was letting out his frustrations with three other Kiwi supporters.
Shaw, sipping a drink and savouring an ice-cream in a cone, said to his friends, “Sack Ross Taylor ... sack Mike Hesson ... sack Craig McMillan, the batting coach cannot teach his players to play spin,” as Sam Plummer, Ross Sinclair and Rob Baker tried to pacify the 66-year-old.
Shaw is New Zealand’s most widely travelled sports fan. He is on his “eighth sporting tour of India” and seventh cricket tour here – the other one being for the Commonwealth Games in 2010.
He has been following New Zealand Black Caps since 1989. Besides, he has been an ardent New Zealand rugby fan, travelling with the All Blacks wherever they play.
He is yet to watch New Zealand win a Test in India. “It was school boy batting by New Zealand. They played poor cricket. You cannot play off the back foot in India. The Kiwis showed no foot movement. They can’t play spin,” said a disappointed Shaw.
“Another regular feature with the Kiwis is that they lose wicket after a session. Cricket is a mental game.”
Shaw works as an accountant in Auckland six months of the year. The other half year, he follows the New Zealand cricket and rugby teams wherever they play. He funds his own trips and has rejected sponsors several times.
He has travelled to 96 countries – “Trying to get to 100,” he said – including Rio de Janeiro for the 2016 Olympics. “I watched 10 of the 18 medals that New Zealand won in Rio Games,” Shaw said proudly. He has also supported the NZ sailing and yachting teams.
But cricket and rugby are his favourite.
The first Test he watched at a stadium was between his country and the West Indies in Auckland in 1969. “My boyhood hero Garfield Sobers failed and broke my heart,” Shaw recollected. Since then, he has watched 158 Tests besides 459 ODIs including the four cricket World Cups from 2003.
Regarding former West Indies captain Brian Lara, ex-New Zealand captain Stephen Fleming and opener Nathan Astle among his mates, Shaw’s memory is sharp. His first trip as a travelling fan was on the 1989 All Blacks’ rugby tour of Canada, Ireland and Wales.
“On way home, I watched the New Zealand vs Australia cricket match in Perth in which Mark Greatbatch batted for two days to save the Test.”
As flag-bearer of New Zealand, Shaw has invaded the pitch on numerous occasions. “It was fine those days. I did not get caught,” he said, concerned not being able to do it now-a-days due to tight security.
During one such pitch invasion, Shaw remembered: “Lara is a good friend of mine. During the Trinidad One-dayer in 1996, I ran to the middle after he reached his hundred and put a $100 note in his pocket. That night, I was with Fleming and Dipak Patil drinking and someone patted me on my back with a beer in hand. It was Lara and he said ‘let me buy you beer’.”
Shaw rates West Indies, where he has been seven times, and Barbados among the best he has experienced watching cricket.
Shaw is in Indore for the third Test and will return home only after the ODIs, excited about watching an ODI in Dharamsala for the first time.
Does he not get frustrated to be travelling with a team that is losing repeatedly in India? He said: “We have never won a Test series in India and South Africa. Yet, we have to keep going and supporting the team because when it (the win) happens and you are not there, it would be a big miss.”
For Plummer, who flew into Kolkata to watch the Test from Cambodia, where he works, and his friends, it was time to bid farewell to Shaw and catch a flight back home.
For Shaw, with the ice-cream and drink finished, he switched on his tablet and beamed as he looked at his grand daughter’s photos who celebrated her second birthday earlier in the day back home.
A better way to divert Shaw’s mind from the “poor” cricket his team was playing.
Source:
MUMBAI SPORT [PG 14] : Travails of a globe-trotting New Zealand fan
