Cockbain Blog From New Zealand
19 January 2013
Ian Cockbain is spending the winter playing for Marist Harewood Cricket Club in New Zealand and has just sent his latest blog to update Gloucestershire supporters on his progress.
Ian writes: "Hello everybody back home in the cold and rain haha.
"Well since my last update, we started our two-day competition in the fortnight leading up to Christmas. This got off to a decent start, but unfortunately didn't produce the right result. It was a bit disappointing really as we played all the cricket over the two weekends, declaring twice and dangling the carrot for our opposition to chase 220 in 60 overs on the final day. We didn't bowl very well, had a few poor umpiring decisions not go our way and they chased it down with two overs left in the day for the loss of seven wickets.
"After that we had our Christmas break for nearly three weeks without any cricket. It was nice to have a bit of down time and do a bit of travelling. I had Christmas dinner with the president of the club, which was very nice, and spent quality time with a lovely family.
"On December 27th a good friend of mine and also one of our own GCCC players, Paul Muchall, and his girlfriend came down from Auckland to see me and we headed off for a bit of white water rafting.
"This was great fun, but I somehow found myself in the front of the dinghy battling away through the rapids going face first into the walls of water, while Paul and his girlfriend were having a leisurely paddle in the back off the boat having a good chuckle at me grafting away.
"We had a great day and spent the final 15 minutes floating down the beautiful river using Muchy's massive head as a float while taking in the breathtaking scenery.
"I then headed to a small skiing town called Queenstown for four days over New Year, which was a great trip with a few good friends. Unfortunately the weather wasn’t great and it rained for three of the four days I was there, which put a stop on the touristy things to do.
"However, I did get to watch Otago take on Auckland in a T20 match where our very own English Kiwi James Fuller put in a very good performance. The weather was really disappointing as I got a glimpse on the first day on how beautiful parts of New Zealand can be.
"Last weekend we started back up with cricket and found ourselves pretty much level pegging after the first day with a deficit of about 25 runs. On the Sunday we continued our T20 competition with two games being played and finally there was some good news as we got back to winning ways and had two comfortable wins. Even more pleasing was that I finally got a few runs and hit a few big shots in both games.
"Well I hope it’s not too cold back home as the weather is finally showing some promise here and the tanning is going well, although my surfing is still useless and hasn’t improved in the slightest."
