Source: Radio New Zealand
John Reid in 2015 in his study surrounded by memorabilia from his cricketing career. Supplied / Lisa Thompson
This week’s one of despair for New Zealand cricket lovers, after the Black Caps were outclassed in the T20 World Cup final.
But, today is a special anniversary in cricket history – it’s 70 years since New Zealand won its first test match, after 26 years of trying.
The victory over the West Indies at Auckland’s Eden Park came in the 45th attempt, going back to January 1930. They’d suffered 22 losses and drawn 22.
As the victorious cricketers walked off Eden Park many in the crowd jumped the fence and swarmed their heroes.
Among the fans sprinting to the middle was 11-year-old Anand Satyanand.
The future governor-general of New Zealand, now Sir Anand, rushed to see history unfold as it seemed the game was heading for a tight finish.
“I went from Richmond Road School with a small group of friends,” he said.
“We were a cricket-mad school, as I recollect, and from Richmond Road one caught the bus to the reservoir on the corner of Ponsonby and Great North Road and then walked along and across the gully to Eden Park.”
The Right Hon. Sir Anand Satyanand, former Governor General of New Zealand. RNZ
Once there he was among those snapped by press photographers capturing the euphoric scenes.
“I was sitting on the terraces with my friend Ken Pratt… and clearly in a moment of excitement we jumped the fence and walked across the ground, hence that photograph that appeared in the New Zealand Herald of the two teams coming off the field, surrounded by a group of cricketing followers.”
A copy of that now hangs in Sir Anand’s laundry. In the picture he’s carrying his school satchel over his shoulder.
It was a low-scoring match – both teams scored at less than 2 runs an over – and the West Indies on the final day needed 268 runs to win the series four-nil.
But the New Zealanders, especially medium fast bowlers Harry Cave and Don Beard, took advantage of the tricky conditions and bowled them out for 77.
The New Zealand line-up even included former West Indies player Sammy Guillen, but was missing the great batsman of the era, Bert Sutcliffe, who played 42 tests but was never once on a winning side.
Expectations heading into the game were low. The West Indies had thrashed New Zealand in the three preceding tests and it was only a year since New Zealand was humiliated – bowled out for 26 by England, still a world-record low score.
It was quite the turnaround. At the after-match presentations captain John Reid was hailed as a hero, as the crowd gave him more than one round of three cheers.
He later said it was the best day of his cricket career – the non-drinker even tasting champagne during the celebrations.
“For once it wasn’t us who bowled that one loose ball each over, or who dropped the vital catch,” he told journalist Joseph Romanos in their 2000 book, John Reid – A Cricketing Life.
Former New Zealand cricketer John F Reid. PHOTOSPORT
Bill Frith, who was then 10, remembers watching as much of the match as he could, rushing there on the final day from Mt Roskill Intermediate.
In those days you’d get into the last session for free.
“I remember being on the terraces, which were grass at that time. It was quite a good-looking ground at that time, and I can remember the jubilation at the end, with the players pulling the stumps out and souveniring them and and that sort of thing.”
Still years until daylight saving arrived, the players were battling the gloom, but New Zealand had conditions in its favour.
“In those days you could go out and inspect the pitch. And the pitch there, around where the ball pitched, was sort of like corrugated iron,” Frith said.
“I’d be interested to know what it was like on the day we bowled the West Indies out.”
The Press newspaper described the bedlum: “It was a memorable scene at the end. The ground, all green and gold, was besieged by the crowd of 7000 that watched the final act…
“The crowd, savouring to the full the flavour of the occasion, had not fully dispersed when the teams left the ground an hour later.”
Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack even reported local offices closing early to let workers head to the ground as victory drew near.
Frith and Sir Anand both thought the win might herald a period of success, but it wasn’t to be, and New Zealand struggled at cricket until the 1970s, not winning another test until the 1961-2 summer.
Since then the team has risen to be one of the best in the world – a long innings the pair have enjoyed watching.
Both men fondly remember watching cricket history take place.
“I follow cricket today, but not with the day-to-day enthusiasm of when I was 10 and 12,” Frith said.
“I used to go down to Eden Park and watch all the club games. I used to go and watch the Black Caps practice, and they’d sometimes bowl to me.
“I was the archetypal cricket tragic at that time.”
Sir Anand was similar, although he said his playing ability never matched his enthusiasm.
“I think it was a vital turn of the road for New Zealand cricket to to be able to foot it against a major cricket playing nation and to win,” he said.
“New Zealand had been treated as a rather secondary sort of member of the world cricket fraternity.
“England and Australia only played us on an irregular basis, but the victory against the West Indies was a pointer to the the modern game, where New Zealand is a contender that is treated very seriously.”
SCORES: New Zealand 255 (John Reid 84, Tom Dewdney 5-21) and 157-9 declared (Denis Atkinson 7-53) beat West Indies 145 (Hammond Furlonge 64, Tony MacGibbon 4-44, Harry Cave 4-22) and 77 (Cave 4-21, Don Beard 3-22).
Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand