SA to launch World Cup campaign in ‘New Zealand’s Kimberley’

Times Media

TELFORD VICE, Hamilton

HOURS after the SA squad arrived on Thursday in the city in which Seddon Park nestles, Dale Steyn summed up the place succinctly.

“New Zealand’s Hamilton,” Steyn posted on social media as a caption to a photograph of two people sitting on a public bench, “has many similarities to SA’s Kimberley ...”

The picture had been taken from behind the two figures, who both leaned over as if they were peering down the street looking for a bus. So far, so ordinary - except that one of them had exposed at least 15cm of naked plumber’s crack to the world.

Seddon Park, where SA play their first match of the World Cup against Zimbabwe on Sunday, also has a touch of the ribald about it. The ground was named after New Zealand’s longest serving prime minister, Richard John Seddon, who held office from 1893 to 1906. His nickname? “King Dick”.

All that said, Seddon Park is a proper cricket ground in a country where the game often has to share premises with rugby. Small and intimate and blessed with plenty of trees and grass banks, when full it has the atmosphere of a vast picnic that happens to have a game of cricket going on in the middle of it all.

SA have played just two one-day internationals there. They beat West Indies by 14 runs in February, 1995 and had a game against New Zealand in October washed out.

In test terms, SA drew in March, 2004 and won by nine wickets eight years later. But it is a T20 venue that South Africans will remember Seddon Park most fondly. It was there against New Zealand in February, 2012 that Richard Levi smashed a century off 45 balls - the fastest hundred in the format at international level.

Seddon Park ODIs - 24 (February, 1981 - January, 2015)

Highest total: 363/4 (West Indies v New Zealand - January 8, 2014)

Lowest total: 122 (India v New Zealand - January 14, 2003)

Highest score: Matthew Hayden 181 not out (Australia v New Zealand - February 20, 2007)

Best bowling: Andre Adams 4/21 (New Zealand v India - January 14, 2003)