YOU BLACK CAPS ARE SUCH TEASES

Not an ACTUAL picture of her... but you get the idea

I used to have this girlfriend...

She was Catholic. Really Catholic. This resulted in several discussions about the direction our relationship might take over time. Being a hot-blooded young male, the directions I was proposing were mostly south-of-the-border type directions, stopping along the way to take in the view of her hilly terrain.

The directions she was proposing mostly involved proposing. Therefore, these discussions were quite often rather heated. I don't mean that metaphorically, I mean they usually happened once things started heating up.

Looking at it from a distance, and with the benefit of many years of hindsight, any idiot would have been able to see this particular romance was probably doomed from the start - well, except THIS idiot obviously. I don't know why I thought she would eventually relent. Why would she suddenly just cast aside a lifetime of religious indoctrination just to satisfy a few post teenage urges? And yet, I hung in there. Somehow she was able to weave some sexy spell of false hope I found absolutely irresistible.

Sadly, her powers of resistance were undentable and after many months of clumsy but frenzied over-the-clothes fumbling, we finally recognised the impasse between her theology and my biology and we parted company.

Actually, that's a lie. She dumped me without ever satisfactorily explaining why, crushing my ever-hopeful young heart like a packet of chips mispacked at the bottom of the shopping bag with all the soft-drink bottles in it.

There is a point to this story... This painful story... This story of young love unrealised... Opportunities missed... The point is we as a nation, we as New Zealanders all have a Catholic girlfriend and her name is the Black Caps.

Can I be blunt? Let's face facts; New Zealand cricket has always been a bit shit. Over many decades, they've usually delivered far less than they've promised - and they've never even promised all that much. Yet, for some reason we not only continue to hope, we have adopted this silly game as our national summer sport!

Where do we think this relationship is going to go? Do we think if we keep tuning in to the commentaries, MySky-ing the highlights packages or (heaven forbid) physically turning up to the games we're actually going to get something out of it?

Our heads say, "No, of course not. Don't be ridiculous." But our hearts say, "Just one more game. We'll check the scoreboard at lunchtime, see how they're going. You never know, today could be the day."

Today won't be the day. Today will never be the day. Even if today IS the day, tomorrow WON'T be the day again. Remember? When it comes to cricket, we're a bit shit. Always have been.

And yet...

Hope springs.

The Black Caps have been stringing us along for so long now, they've turned it into an art form. They've given us every reason to dump them. In fact, about 6 weeks ago I DID dump them - in this very blog. At that time, and I don't think I was the only one, I'd finally had enough of cricket's over-promising and under-delivering and washed my hands of them once and for all... until this weekend's test that is.

Suddenly they were playing proper cricket. You know, batting properly, not getting out very often, bowling in more or less the right direction, catching most of the catches. With all those positive signs, what self-respecting sports fan wouldn't be at least SLIGHTLY aroused? So we started checking the score. Watching the beginning of the sports news. Maybe even tuning in to Radio Sport on the way home.

By Monday things were looking pretty damn good. By Tuesday morning, we had it in the bag. We had heaps of runs in the bank. The weather was great. All day to take just 6 wickets? What could possibly go wrong?

As the day wore on, things looked less promising, then really promising, then hopeless, then finally, almost a done deal. This was it, 1 wicket left, 3 overs to go, oh my god, this time we're actually, finally going to go ALL THE WAY!!!

Even the Domestic Manager said, "Looks like the cricket was pretty exciting," and nobody hates cricket more than her.

But no. Somehow, and it seems oh so inevitable looking back at it, somehow the Black Caps found yet another way to not win. 

Hats off to you, NZ Cricket. Feel free to keep leading us on, we'll always come back. We just can't help ourselves.

Oh sure, they're happy to kiss and cuddle. But they won't go any further