Richard Langston’s Brendon McCullum 302 poem

In 2021, I sent a poem by Richard Langston to The Cricket Society News Bulletin.

Langston is a Wellington poet and journalist, well known for his collection The Newspaper Poems, and producing Country Calendar on TV One. He published a music book on Dunedin band The Clean this year.

Langston also tried his hand at cricket poetry appearing in A Tinging Catch.

The poem of his I sent in to the bulletin coincided with the New Zealand tour of England that year. It’s written on Brendon McCullum’s feat of scoring the first test match triple century by a New Zealander in 2014. This eclipsed Martin Crowe’s previous record of 299.

My own poem on Baz’s feat ‘Triple Glory’ is the most popular post on this site.

RICHARD LANGSTON

Brendon McCullum, 302

The whiff of a great deed lingers
in the stillness days later,
in the wide stare of the grandstand,
in the midday shadows of the trees
pooling on the grassy terraces,
in the faint breeze passing from the north gate
to the south.

A country felt it in that hour,
for a moment, summer cloudless.
People rose & clapped
stood & witnessed
a solitary man, alone,
take the final run beyond himself,
only a blade of wood to raise
to acknowledge what he had done.

We sent him approving thunder
clapping around his ears
as he walked across the mown grass,
able to believe for a moment
this applause without end.
But days of glory do drift away,
& the once-exultant live as we live
within the confines of our own shadows.

Poem © Richard Langston

(from the collection, Five O’clock Shadows, Cuba Press, NZ, 2020)

Mark Pirie’s poem on McCullum’s 302: 
Brendon McCullum triple ton poem

Other blog posts featuring Richard Langston: 
Richard Langston discusses A Tingling Catch

Check out Richard Langston’s new music book The Clean: In the Dreamlife You Need a Rubber Soul published by Auckland University Press.

C A J Williams’ NZ cricket poem

C A J (Chris) Williams (b. 1970) is a Wellington poet that has been in touch with me in the past ten years. He published a book 35 Short Poems (The Buttress Press) in 2016 and was published in Landfall, and my journal broadsheet. He reviewed my book of rugby poems and appeared with his Tana Umaga poem in my booklet Sevens (2020).

Williams has also written on cricket and I sent his poem in to The Cricket Society News Bulletin in 2020.

It’s an experimental form poem about his father and cricket at Lord’s, London. It mentions players like Denis Compton and Don Bradman.

C A J WILLIAMS

At Lord’s, St John’s Wood

my father / & I / sat / down the hill / old father time / behind us / in front of us / where Nugget Miller used to field / out of the way / just to scatter my father / re-told / the time / Nugget & Denis Compton / marched / through the Grace Gates / arm in arm / in dinner suits / then changed / into white fannels / then / tipped / glasses of champagne / & returned / to the day’s play / & Nugget to field / at long leg / the sun / on his back / everyone / wanted to be Nugget / to flick his fringe at the top of his mark / to be the brilliant Brylcreem poster model / to throw the ball back to Bradman when asked to bowl / to shoulder arms first ball clean bowled / & stride off the ground / to a race meeting / they say / he knew / of a secret back door / to Buckingham Palace / & Princess Margaret / blushed / at dinners / & after-match functions / & private room / meetings / when she shook his hand / her eyes / never left him / when she smoked / that / blue-dove smokey intent

Poem © C A J Williams

Check out Williams’ review of my rugby poems at The Reader (Booksellers New Zealand Blog): Sidelights Rugby Poems | 

Williams’ poems were also published in Poetry Notes, Spring 2018: Newsletters | Poetry Archive of New Zealand Aotearoa

Bill Sutton’s 2019 NZ cricket poem

Bill Sutton (1944-2025) was a Napier poet and poetry enthusiast. After a career as a politician (Labour MP 1984-1990) and scientist, Sutton turned his hand to the craft of poetry with some success. He became known as an organiser of events (National Poetry Conference, Havelock North 2013, East-West Poetry Fests 2016, 2018 in Palmerston North).

Sutton started publishing his work in literary journals from around 2007 and published three collections of his poetry. Notable was his interest in sport, writing poems on tennis, netball, running, rugby and cricket.

His cricket poem ‘Spirit of Cricket’ was published in The Cricket Society News Bulletin in 2019, the year that New Zealand played their World Cup final with England – lost by the narrowest of margins with scores being tied.  

Sutton’s poem mentions the string of narrow losses by New Zealand in 1992 under Martin Crowe, then the 2015 World Cup with Grant Elliott’s six taking them all the way to the final, and finally the Lord’s final in 2019. He interestingly brings in the changing history of free-to-air and pay-to-view broadcasting of the period.

BILL SUTTON

Spirit of Cricket

I was there for the 1992
World Cup, following the games
on free-to-air TV, back before
we sold our sports for money.
The best games were as exciting
as any cricket I’ve witnessed.

Martin Crowe, our batting master
and strategic genius, told Greatbatch
to blast boundaries from the first ball
then opened our bowling with Patel!
He took us right to the semi-final
and ready to win it. But Pakistan

had prepared to prove us fallible
and won that vital game. Waiting
23 years for our second chance
under Mike Hesson, our best coach
and Kane Williamson our captain
we made it back to the semi’s again

where a huge 6 beat South Africa
but we lost in the final to Australia.
This time we’d waited just 4 years
and had to pay to follow the games
so watching our cricket cost us, but
it seems the same excitement stirs us

whichever technology one chooses.
This time we took a crucial first step
forwards by facing down India’s team
backed by their thousands of Manchester
supporters, an Indian player’s dream –
but despite some confident assertions

and journalistic prognostications
our Black Caps won that tough semi
and got to play England in the final.
So how would that play out at Lord’s –
the home of English cricket? The few
predictions by players were cautious.

After hours of following the final
I watched it for free on TV again
as another twist in the media saga
returned us to where we’d all started,
but no matter which side won or lost
both had needed to do their best

and the England team knew it too.
I may not be back to see it through
next time our team makes the final
but I hope my children will follow it
and recall how much we all loved it –
blown away by the spirit of cricket.

Poem © Bill Sutton

An obituary can be found at the Poetry Archive of New Zealand Aotearoa website: Bill Sutton 1944-2025 | Poetry Archive of New Zealand Aotearoa. Bill Sutton’s best known book was Jabberwocky published by Steele Roberts.

Francis Cloke’s 1931 NZ cricket poem on Don Bradman

Francis Cloke (1860-1941), an early heritage poet in New Zealand and mostly unrecognized, wrote a cricket poem on Australian great Don Bradman. I came across his book doing the Poetry Archive of New Zealand Aotearoa in Wellington.

Cloke’s only collection (privately printed), Songs of New Zealand and Various Verses (Auckland, NZ: Dawson Printing), appeared in three editions: 1924, 1925, 1931. A regional Auckland poet, Cloke wrote popular verses on various Kiwi themes: sport (cricket, rugby, league, yachting, etc.), the landscape, towns and bays, and celebrations of church, political, historical and military figures, including aviator Jean Batten. He was a contemporary of other New Zealand poets like the recently republished Robert J Pope (1865-1949).

FRANCIS CLOKE

The Greatest Batsman

Don Bradman is a masterpiece,
            Outstanding far above the rest;
To see the strokes he can release,
            When he is playing in the Test;
He has a stroke for every one,
            If fast, or medium, or slow;
They’re all the same to Master Don,
            His cuts and drives doth plainly show;
His judgement is remarkable,
            His footwork there none can surpass;
His sight so keen that sees the ball,
            It finds the boundary ’mid the grass;
He guards the wicket with all care,
            And plays the ball so gracefully;
But when he hits he drives it where
            No man was placed by captaincy.

Poem © Francis Cloke

Poem from Songs of New Zealand and Various Verses, 3rd ed., Auckland, 1931

I wrote an article about Cloke’s rugby league poem on Carlaw Park for National Poetry Day 2015: National Poetry Day poem: Carlaw Park by Francis Cloke | Poetry Archive of New Zealand Aotearoa.

Previous posts on his contemporary Robert J Pope, a cricketer, known for his rugby poetry, are:

Robert J. Pope - NZ poet and cricketer

New selection of cricketer Robert J Pope’s poetry

Robert J Pope's King Willow reissued

Reviews of Robert J Pope’s King Willow

Cricket Society Journal reviews King Willow

Dorothy Wharehoka’s 2015 NZ cricket poem on Kane Williamson

Dorothy Wharehoka (d. 2022) was a Hawke’s Bay poet and sent me a cricket poem (an acrostic) in 2015. I had it published in The Cricket Society News Bulletin.

Wharehoka’s poem is written about the World Cup that year, New Zealand v Australia. Williamson won the match with a six. The Aussies would end up beating New Zealand in the final under Michael Clarke’s leadership. I also wrote a poem about it, ‘The Anatomy of Kane Williamson’s 6’ in my book Slips (2021).

DOROTHY WHAREHOKA

Howzat!

Crikey, Captain Fantastic, a blistering start;
Run rates this high could tear the Ockers apart.
Into the bowling attack came left swinger Starc
Clunk! The death rattle of wickets heard through the park.
Kane’s time now to step up and be ‘unspectacularly good’;
Eleventh man’s in, need the sweet touch of leather with wood.
The tension. The strike. The relief. The victory six!

Poem © Dorothy Wharehoka

Wharehoka was known for poems used as teaching aids. ‘Maui Chant’ by Wharehoka was based on the legend of Maui and the Giant Fish, and the lesson focuses on verbs, repetition and te reo Māori.” Verbs & repetition. 'Maui Chant' poem with worksheets + craft. | Teaching Resources. She published the poetry book, Peninsula Pieces (1994), with photography by Jocelyn Penny, and was part of the Hawke’s Bay Live Poets, with Sonia MacKenzie, Bill Sutton, Jeremy Roberts and others. She is included in regional anthologies like Seasons’ Voices: 30 Years of Hawke’s Bay Live Poets’ Society (2022).

Richard Reeve’s NZ cricket poem Butterflies on Martin Crowe

Richard Reeve, a prominent poet of my generation in New Zealand, sent me a cricket poem for my journal broadsheet back in 2018. I sent it on to The Cricket Society News Bulletin. It’s an interesting poem that draws on the late Martin Crowe’s attributed quote by Ross Taylor, his batting protégé.

It’s a cricket poem in traditional structure and form. Reeves excels in word-magic and neo formalism as a poet, and not many poets in New Zealand compare to him. He has been represented in Best New Zealand Poems a number of times and published seven collections of his poetry. His collections are well worth seeking out at bookshops and public libraries in New Zealand.

RICHARD REEVE

Butterflies

‘If you see a butterfly out there, that’s me’
 ─ attributed to Martin Crowe

So he was, then was not. Martin Crowe dead,
a detail from his brief life resurrected.
This his protégé, novus homo, said,
our latest greatest ever. Undetected,

the talent grew inside him like a cancer;
he cultivated genius for the bat,
not contemplating any other answer
to elevate a sportsman’s requiescat.

Nor are answers in any case required
for life to be lived as it may be lived,
men having achieved what they have desired
incompetent yet eager in their shift.

Certainly, there are butterflies out there,
they flutter in the slips, or after games
superintend the crowds, in post-match air
inspiring fans with afterlives of names;

yet they are not our champion now gone,
not Crowe nor Cronje, Tendulkar, Taylor.
Fleeting ascendance, forewing, abdomen,
they float on dreams then sink in failure.

Poem © Richard Reeve

Reeve’s latest collection of poetry was released in 2024: About Now - Richard Reeve - General Editions Studio.

Also check out Best New Zealand Poems for 2024.

Margaret Jeune’s 2020 NZ cricket poem

Margaret Jeune is a contemporary New Zealand poet and photographer. She has published about 8 publications of poetry, some with others. She has also published a book of her photographs.

In 2020 during the period of bush fires in Australia and the summer cricket season, Jeune wrote a poem about New Zealand and Australian cricketers called ‘Brotherhood’.

It’s a nice, short piece depicting the concern shown by New Zealand players for their Aussie counterparts outside the field of play. It was published in The Cricket Society News Bulletin in England that year.

MARGARET JEUNE

Brotherhood

Black clouds drift across the sky
The wind has blown smoke across the Tasman Sea
From the massive bush fires in Australia
The tragedy is depicted daily on the TV News
It is translated into a visible poignant reminder
Of what is happening in Australia
An Australian cricketer is interviewed on the radio
He says that he is lucky to play international cricket
While so many of his fellow Australians are suffering
The New Zealand cricket captain says that losing to Australia
Is put into perspective by the sheer scale of suffering in Australia at present
This tragedy is unfolding in front of our eyes

Poem © Margaret Jeune

This poem is in Jeune's Selected Poems available internationally online at lulu independent bookstore Shop the Indie Online Bookstore | Lulu.