Ed Said: Looking at the numbers

 

It’s midnight Wednesday night, and Kane Williamson has safely negotiated the last over before lunch on Day 1 of the 1st Test between England and the Blackcaps at Lords.

At a pre-match press conference Williamson was asked why Lords, known as The Home of Cricket, was such a special place to play. Was it the history? The tradition? No. It was the lunches. Lords, he said, catered the best lunches of any ground anywhere in the world.Poised to be New Zealand’s greatest ever batsman, the current number one ranked Test batsman in the world boasts some pretty good numbers so far in his career – over 7000 Test runs at an average of just under 55 including 24 centuries and 32 half centuries. Cricket is all about the numbers. Let’s see what other numbers are making the news lately.

13
Unlucky 13 in this case, as Kane Williamson plays the first ball after said lunch onto his off stump. That’s the seventh time James Anderson has dismissed Williamson in Tests. We’re not sure if Williamson made it back to the buffet for seconds after a quick shower.

80
American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan celebrated his 80th birth-day on May 24. Widely considered one of the greatest songwrit-ers of all time, the artist formerly known as Robert Allen Zimmer-man has never had a number one hit in the US or UK, unlike Vanilla Ice, The Proclaimers, and Dexy’s Midnight Runners.

48
On that same subject, a San Francisco man has returned a Bob Dylan album back to an Ohio library 48 years – or around 17,500 days – after it was due to be returned. The library says it doesn’t charge fines anymore – as long as they get the item back. He was aged just 17 when he issued the album from the library!

998,823
The biggest thing in the news the last few weeks has been the buzz over the Friends reunion special. Almost a million rabid Kiwi fans of the show (including our own Friends tragic, Julia Wade) tuned in to watch the cast back together again after 17 years.

40
Destructive sand mining in and around local shores has caught more than local attention. That’s a positive thing, as the truth about the practice and its harm to the environment becomes more widely known. The habitat of around 40 struggling and endangered fairy tern is also at risk.

236,000
That’s about the number of people fully vaccinated against Covid-19 in New Zealand – around 4.2 per cent of the population. If you thought that seems like slow going, consider that while 600 million around the world have been partially vaccinated, there’s 7 billion who haven’t.

200
What a bookend for this column. It’s after midnight Thursday night. A miscued six over the fine leg boundary to bring up his double century on Test debut was a sign it was all meant to be for Devon Conway and the Black Caps. After a near faultless innings it was a bit of an anti-climax to see him run out soon after reaching the 200-run milestone. Either way it’s the highest score by any Test batsmen on debut in England, ever.

What gives me just as much pleasure is the prospect of cricket returning to Mangawhai Domain.

Rich Pooley
Editor
info@mangawhaifocus.co.nz