Cricket with the Kiwis

A seven-hour drive to watch a cricket match? Well, we are a crazy passionate nation when it comes to this particular sport.

Everyone is busy here leading a hectic life. Taking a day off, preparing for a long 14-hour journey to watch the game in Napier and come back to Auckland is not that easy. Then again, who cares? This is Bangladesh playing against New Zealand. Our motherland vs our second home. Worth every penny and sweat if you ask.

We started out at 6:00 in the morning. Oh, I almost forgot, we took our homemade beef biriyani with us which was one of the best parts of the journey! We reached Maclean park around 2:00pm and parked our car almost a kilometre away from the stadium due to lack of parking space. Finally, we entered the stadium and found both of the teams lining up for the national anthems. You know what’s the best part of watching a game in the stadium? When we sing our national anthem, standing with all the spiritual energy and love for our beloved country.

The whole game was exciting though the Tigers faced difficulties in the batting section in the beginning. Mithun played an outstanding innings with integrity, patience and showed pure professionalism. Saifuddin played alongside Mithun and that partnership brought our fighting score of 232. The Tigers were not in the best form in bowling but we have to take M Guptill and H Nicholls into consideration as they are world class openers. Finally, the Black Caps bagged an eight-wicket win over the Tigers which was disappointing to us.

It was the first match of the three-match series. Bangladesh has already lost the second match in Christchurch.

We did not feel down though and maybe that is because of the Kiwi supporters who are really humble and polite. We even saw a Kiwi supporter waving our national flag when we were feeling down, trying to cheer us up. It was one of the best scenes to be honest. We enjoyed the game, loved the atmosphere and it was great to see our favorite players on the field with true sportsmanship. Best wishes to the Tigers for the remaining series and hopefully we will get to see great matches.