This is what it meant to people

By The Spotter

Wasn’t it unbelievable?  Was it!  Let me share some interactions I had near and at the conclusion to that game for the ages two nights ago at Eden Park.

1.The following text would surely have summed up the mood of a huge cross-section of Kiwis up and down our euphoric nation at the time.  It arrived on my phone at 10.41 pm amidst the pandemonium of those closing overs and was sent by my good friend and work colleague, Ruth: “Paul, I keep getting told off by the family for screaming like a demented banshee and have now been banished to the little TV in the spare room for the rest of the game”.

2. At 10.58pm a call arrived from a long-time mate, an ex-Hawke’s Bay and Wellington-ite, James who rang me just after Elliott had planted that six into the stand off the penultimate ball to win.  These days James lives in Titirangi in Auckland, a bit out of the way from all the hurly-burly of the big smoke and in a rather deathly quiet street moreover.  “Mate, I’m listening to and can faintly make out some guys leaping around the street and screaming their faces off like Tarzan, never knew they even existed!”  “Bloody brilliant, I love it” I shrieked or was it more like, croaked back.

3. I then called my more or less oldest sporting confidant and top bloke (Rugby League through-and-through and a top ref of not that long ago) Craig and the bloke seemed so wrung-out and somewhat overcome that he could hardly speak.  And like me, he had almost totally lost his voice…a ref who lost his voice, ye gods, some irony in that!

Come morning and after a mostly sleepness night of bordering on hyper-activeness I tried to teach with a voice which felt something like broken glass on a pathway of small, sharp stones and gravel.  And now I’m just hoping to have most of it back by this Sunday afternoon…