Long, unhurried days with a cooler: the cricket fans sticking with New Zealand’s forgotten format

In an age dominated by T20, New Zealand’s long-form Plunket Shield is a throwback to another time and retains a small group of committed fans

From the spot where Helen Julius spread her arms across the peeling, sun-flecked green paint of the pavilion’s bench seats, Eden Park’s Outer Oval in Auckland was almost picturesque.

There were the white-clad cricketers – Auckland batting, Canterbury in the field – and a bank of agapanthus just beginning to break out in flower beyond the sight-screen on the ground’s northern boundary. Sparrows, nesting in the pavilion roof, chattered incessantly.

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