Giving credit where it is due

Very nicely done.

So the semi finals are going to be interesting.

Roll on Australia on Saturday.

But I have a problem. This problem always happens when New Zealand is playing South Africa. Though oddly only in cricket, not in rugby or any other sport.

I don't like it when the beat South Africa. Because it is the MotherCountry.

Heh.

Ok, backstory.

Back in the dark ages, when I was a student, I worked in a hotel. This (not very flash, so I'm not sure how) hotel got all the domestic cricket teams and some of the npc rugby teams and the odd international cricket team. And the All Blacks. I have many a story about those days, and many a friend from that time who is sick of hearing them. And most of them are too sordid to tell.

The cricket teams where always a lot more fun than the rugby teams, in that they'd drink in the bar, they'd come out with us, and they were generally a lot nicer. The rugby boys tended to stay in their team room, and didn't drink nearly as much. Shame. The Northern Districts team was particularly entertaining. I will always have a soft spot for them. They're the only sports team I would ever support over Canterbury.

I started in that hotel as a 17 year old, who loved cricket and rugby, and who was completely starstruck by the legends I saw - in fact, my first week there, Pakistan was staying - with Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis. It destroyed any last shred of innocence I might have had - straight out of high school - watching prostitutes head up to the rooms the team was staying in.

Anyway. Years later, Zimbabwe were staying. We loved the Flower brothers, with their very very blue eyes, and their fantastic accents. Their stay coincided with a time my fiend Vic put a notice on the staff noticeboard saying "If you could be a biscuit, what kind of biscuit would you be?" Vic was a psych student, and people though this was some kind of experiment and took it way too seriously.

I don't know how it happened, but somehow, it morphed into Clare and Vic and I always saying "If you could be a biscuit, what kind of biscuit would you be?" in a dodgy Zimbabwean/South African accent. Cue many racist jokes about how it was ok to be a mallowpuff (black on the outside, white in the middle) but really, a swiss creme was the best (white everywhere). So not even funny rascist jokes.

Eventually, South Africa became the MotherCountry (or, in our bad accents the muthercunttry) and one day, when Clare and I were watching South Africa play cricket, Jonty Rhodes our God.

We've been using that accent for ten years. When I watched Blood Diamond a few weeks ago (good movie- go see it) all I wanted Leonardo diCaprio's Zimbabwean character to do, was to burst out with a rousing chorus of "If you could be a biscuit, what kind of biscuit would you be?" And whenever I hear a South African accent, I am catapulted back to that time - which may just have been the funnest time of my life. No responsibilities, few cares, a lot of drinking, and lot of flirting with cute-cricket playing boys (yeah, not so cute in that last instance).

Anyway, to the NZ team. I don't mind if you beat them. Not at all - in fact this would have been a very different post if you hadn't. But go easy, will you? Maybe don't make it look quite so simple?

[Update: I should also point out Tracey, the mother of Gracey and Luke, worked the same hotel. She was indirectly responsible for some of my worst behaviour during that time - being the conduit to the purveyor of a rather excellent home-brewed smokey bourbon Clare and I were rather partial to. And the flatmate of Jo, who led a lot of us, and especially several cricketers, very far astray.]