There is nothing more amusing than watching a diehard cricket fan explain the basics of a test match to a complete novice.

How can anyone sit there for five days watching a person dressed all in white, walk slowly down a paddock, turn around, run back and throw a small object at another person dressed all in white?

The questions are endless. How do you know which team is which? How many 'points” do you need to win? Does everyone get a turn? How long does a game last ….. nooooo you're kidding me?

Personally I can happily sit there for days watching my team if they are doing well. I do draw the line at watching the other team bat forever. If that starts to happen, I will record, go and do something else and then later on I will replay it at 30X speed until a wicket falls. I will then rewind by five minutes, watch the poor bowler trudge in a few more times and the fielders with their grim faces until the batsman gets undone. That way I get all the excitement although it is somewhat ruined by knowing what happens.

By now, I have completely bamboozled most non-cricket people and horribly offended the cricket purists – fast forward pfffft!

Cricket jargon is a completely foreign language to probably the majority of people. I mean ‘a wicket falls' – what is he on about?

Of course, I'm talking about all of this because the Bay Oval is hosting its first ever international cricket match this week and so you need to know, even if you don't want to.
The last ditch pitch for the cricket fan when they have noticed a flicker of what could be interest in the eye of the uninitiated is to explain that, you don't have to love cricket to enjoy the experience.

What could be better than sitting on a grassy embankment, in the sun, reading a book and hearing the occasional excited cries of the cricketers and the polite gentle clapping of the crowd every now and then?

Then there's the lively banter of the Barmy Army and the refreshments and the entertainment. Aaaah, that's cricket.

A right royal mess

What is just not cricket however is the right royal mess Prince Andrew has waded into while trying to wade out of his links with his dodgy buddy, the late Jeffrey Epstein.

How could he possibly have known that defending a sex offender and ignoring the victims would have been such a PR disaster?

Editor of the Royal Central website Charlie Proctor probably summed up best the ill-fated interview Prince Andrew had with BBC Newsnight.

'I expected a train wreck … that was a plane crashing into an oil tanker, causing a tsunami, triggering a nuclear explosion-level bad.”

Watching carefully constructed PR go horribly wrong is actually more fun to a journalist than watching cricket. There is roughly six PR agents for every journalist, and that doesn't include those who fall under the broader banner of 'communications”.

We are fed spin at every opportunity – from our favourite sports teams to our politicians – so it's nice when the public sometimes gets a straight drive in return – excuse the cricket jargon!

Anyway, Prince Andrew has been given 'permission” from The Queen, to step away from public duties for the foreseeable future because his association with Epstein has become a 'major distraction”.

Good decision although I'm pretty sure it is not his public activities that anyone has questions about.

We're on track

Steering away from international affairs, it seems the Mauao Base Track is to be repaired quick-smart after all.

Expensive multi-million dollar solutions have been shelved in favour of a less expensive option to stabilise the ground and reinstate a track that anyone can use, across the section that slipped away.

This has been an interesting conundrum for the Tauranga City Council. The tendency for local and central government agencies is to take a very low-risk approach to public facilities. Those who remember the Cave Creek disaster will appreciate why.

You only have to look at Mauao from a distance to appreciate that it has been shaped by the forces of nature, like the rest of our country. If we took a no-risk approach to walking tracks, we wouldn't have any.

The more popular and accessible the walking track, the higher the expectation is, that it is safe to use, which I am guessing is why the track has been left so long.

But, if our new Mayor can fulfil his promise to restore the track by Christmas, and everyone survives, then it's a win for practicality over pedantic.

And surely that's worth clapping about.

daniel@thesun.co.nz