Geoff Barlow’s 2004 NZ cricket poem

Geoff Barlow (d. 2024) was an Auckland poet. He was active as a poet in his younger years at Wellington Teachers’ Training College appearing alongside James K Baxter and Louis Johnson in several Glenco anthologies in the early 1950s. A poem of his also appeared in the New Zealand Poetry Yearbook 1953.

He became a secondary school teacher specialising in English, Poetry and Drama, and lived his later years in Auckland.

He continued to write poetry and was a member of the Titirangi Poets since the 1980s and the Chevron Poets publishing his work from 2000-2010 in their annual collection Scriptio published by John Martin Press. He never published a book of his poetry.

In one of the editions of Scriptio I discovered he had written a cricket poem. I’ll include it in the Tingling Catch archive.

GEOFF BARLOW

Watching the Cricket or Different Strokes

Two old men sit in front of the TV
rapt from the mantra of runs,
overs and wickets,
reminiscing on first eleven glory.
This while keen young men
hide in cheap rooms
on the other side of the world
and with elaborate secrecy
plan a litany of deception.

They will not grow old to watch the cricket.
They lust for their burst of deadly glory
and entry to an alien heaven.

Poem © Geoff Barlow

(From Scriptio: Auckland Chevron Poets, No. 8, 2004)

Boyet’s 1898 Australian cricket poem

A nineteenth century poem I discovered some years ago researching Papers Past is ‘An Old Battler’s Lament’ by Boyet. It was published in The Evening Post, 7 January 1899, in New Zealand but was originally published in The Australasian, 31 December 1898, so the author is Australian.

AI says:

“Historically, the real identity behind the "Boyet" pseudonym has remained unconfirmed and anonymous. Because "Ways of the World" was a high-society gossip and social commentary column in The Australasian, writers routinely hid behind pen names to protect themselves from legal trouble or social backlash. The name itself is a literary nod: Boyet is a courtier in Shakespeare’s Love's Labour's Lost, known for being a sharp, smooth-tongued observer who comments on the romantic and political games of the wealthy. It was the perfect cloak for a columnist detailing the inner circles of late 19th-century Melbourne and early Australian cricket culture.”

I will include the poem in the Tingling Catch archive.

BOYET

An Old Battler’s Lament

Cricket is a pleasant game
  That people play with bats and stumps;
Also an insect of the name
  Sits round the homely hearth and jumps.
     I cannot say I ever knew
     A sporting man confuse the two.

At times the wicket's worse than moist,
 The bowlers make man Friday’s track.
They plough the pitch, and lumps are hoist
  And dotted on the batsman’s back.
    But Jacky Worrall hits ’em high,
    And jambs the leather in the sky.

Your cricketer, we all agree,
  At frequent “intervals” must rest.
He must have lunch, some smokes, and tea.
  It’s tea that makes him do his best.
     It is the sugar, toast, and scone
     That helps to drive the game along.

At times when batsmen poke and potter,
  And scratch just like a laying hen.
And people shout, “O! rot, rot, rotter!”
  I curl me on my bench, and then
     To sleep it through I do my best,
     With Harry Hilliard and the rest.

I slept and saw a cricket ground,
  Ere “intervals” and “grand stands” came.
On forms the people sat around
  And watched the quick and lively game.
     “Well hit,” “well bowled,” “well fielded” too;
     No sleeping then spectators knew.

It was a treat— they played the game,
  And those who played, “the good old sort,”
You couldn’t call a moment tame.
  I had a full fair hour’s sport. A shout! —
     I woke — some one had scored,
     Two more to “Sundries” on the board!

— Boyet, in Australasian.

(The Evening Post, 7 January 1899)

Mark Pirie’s new cricket book Poets XI published

In October 2026, I released my new cricket book Poets XI. Here’s the book info: 

About the book

Poets XI compiled by Mark Pirie cricket poet and editor and published by Earl of Seacliff Art Workshop is a collection of poems and unusual cricket XIs published to commemorate the Poets XI at the Longroom Basin Reserve, Sunday 31 October 2010.

Cricket historian and writer Don Neely launched the book.

The Earl of Seacliff himself was the MC at the event.

Pirie selected a team of poets on the day that had attended his launch of the book A Tingling Catch at the Basin. Poets are: Nicola Easthope, Tim Jones, Harry Ricketts, Michael O'Leary, John Ansell, Nelson Wattie, Niel Wright, David McGill, Richard Langston, Don Neely and Mark Pirie the captain.

An appendix offers some of the New Zealand literature XIs made by writers over the years. 

Poets XI is a unique piece of cricketing memorabilia.

The cover features a photo by Madeleine Slavick of Don Neely crossing the Basin taken at the event.

Poets XI is available internationally online at lulu independent bookstore Shop the Indie Online Bookstore | Lulu.

Keith St Cartmail’s 1985 NZ cricket poem

Keith St Cartmail (1930-1997) is a poet I don’t know much about. I was recently looking at his books in the Poetry Archive of NZ Aotearoa collection and found a cricket poem of interest.

The biographical note on the back of his book Yoshitoshi in Harlem states: “Robert Keith St Cartmail was born in England, scion of an oppressed working class family. After witnessing further social deprivation in Sicily, where he taught English, he came to the South Seas in search of the Promised Land and here he now lives with his wife and family. His passions include tribal art and learning to see.”

Yoshitoshi in Harlem was his fourth book of poetry in 1985. He also published on religion and philosophy, drama and history. His collected poems The World in Alphabetical Order appeared in 1993 from Brick Row. Craig Potton and the University of Hawaii Press published his Art of Tonga in 1997 the year that he died. “Authoritative and accessible, The Art of Tonga is lavishly illustrated with superb and important examples of Tongan art from throughout its history. It is essential reading for anyone with an interest in the magnificent cultures of Oceania.”

His poem on cricket describes his working class background in England where ‘my father carried coal’ and he notes the privileged class history of cricket in England. I will include the poem in the Tingling Catch archive.

KEITH ST CARTMAIL

Cricket

In England it’s not cricket
To take unfair advantage
To be unsporting
Dear boy

That’s why my father carried coal
To stoke the mill
My mother worked at twelve in
Why people
Dying before their time
Gave up their lives
For Albion Queen and country
The sporting thing to do
Dear boy

For cricket
Is not just bat and ball
It’s privilege and class
And where you were born
That kind of thing
Dear boy

No wonder then
I was pleased
The Aussies got the ashes back
And England lost

Poem © Keith St Cartmail

Ivy Marks Trembath’s NZ cricket poem

Ivy Marks Trembath (1896-1987) was a Tauranga poet. She was born in London as Ivy Marks and came to New Zealand from England in the 1960s with her husband D'Arcy Burral Trembath and became a widower. She remarried late in life. Her death name was Ivy Augusta Wilson.

During World War II she was a Sergeant at the ATS (Authority Territorial Service) Reception Centre in England and her poetry appeared in the Women’s Voluntary Services Bulletin.

A section of her poetry was written about London in her sole New Zealand collection Poems for You self published in 1984 in Tauranga. Her work was broadcast by the BBC and Radio New Zealand. She was a member of the New Zealand Women Writers’ Society and wrote short fiction and radio plays. In 1926 she had her first book of poetry Bells in the Wind published in New York. She was published in various places in England, the US and New Zealand. In New Zealand her poems were published in The Tablet, the Christchurch Star and New Zealand Holiday.

Ivy began writing poetry at age 12 and was the eldest child of the chief librarian of the famous Mudie’s Select Library. Her poetry mentor from her school years was Dr Campbell Morgan, former minister of Westminster Chapel, London, a pastor, preacher and Biblical teacher. Ivy’s poetry was written in traditional rhyme and rhythm and is classic poetry.

I found a cricket poem in her collection that I will add to the Tingling Catch archive.

IVY MARKS TREMBATH

The Fig Tree

The fig tree in St. James Park
Was old when I was small
And played beneath its leafy boughs
With little bat and ball,
And looked above with longing eye
To see the tempting fruit on high.

The fig tree in St. James Park
Still bends its laden bough
Beside the lake and little bridge
As luring then as now;
And as I stand, no longer young,
Beneath the hanging fruit
A childish hand outstretches, swift
To snatch the tempting loot.
And, suddenly, beneath the tree
I see the little ghost of me.

Poem © Ivy Marks Trembath

James Brown’s 2024 NZ cricket poem

James Brown contributed two poems to A Tingling Catch. His poem ‘The Outfield’ was included in the new cricket poetry anthology Catching the Light in England this year.

Brown has published nine collections of his poetry along with a Selected Poems and has been a prominent poet of my generation in New Zealand. His latest book is a book of prose poems released earlier this year.

His 2024 book Slim Volume is based on the idea of the traditional slim volume that poetry has been produced in over the years. While Brown’s book is a bit bigger than the Faber slim volumes I grew up with, I like the note on the back cover: “A slim volume of verse, like a bicycle, offers us fresh and joyful and sometimes troubling ways of seeing the world.” His own poetry is also not done in the traditional manner of English verse. Brown is one of the more innovative of our contemporary poets and his books are always a rewarding read. The book includes novel pauses in the book instead of section breaks in traditional volumes of verse. A critic once said of Brown’s work: “Poetry, but it doesn’t suck.” Brown’s books are well worth seeking out at bookshops and libraries.

One of his poems in Slim Volume is cricket-related and I will include it in the Tingling Catch archive.

JAMES BROWN

Bad Light

It’s very gloomy.
If this were a cricket match,
the light meter would come out,
the umpires would confer, then both teams
would leave the field due to bad light
because it’s unsafe and unfair
if batsmen and fielders are unable to
pick       out        the       red        ball.
It’s an uncertain, contentious time
when people’s rods and cones
dispute colour and intensity
and the boy on the red bicycle disappears
while the driver eager to get home
believes he has nothing before him
but open road.

Poem © James Brown

James Brown’s Slim Volume is available from Te Herenga Waka University Press: Slim Volume – Te Herenga Waka University Press

Nicola Easthope's 2018 twittering catch poem

Nicola Easthope is a Wellington poet who has published three books of her poetry and published her poetry in anthologies and journals. She was a contributor to A Tingling Catch, and also appears in Manifesto Aotearoa: 101 Political Poems.

Her poem ‘How does your sun?’ was selected for the new anthology Catching the Light in England this year.

Some years ago at a reading in Kapiti she told me she had written an experimental poem that took its lead from a review in the Waikato Times of A Tingling Catch. It's cricket related so I thought I would include it in the Tinging Catch archive as a response to the anthology. The poem appears in her second book published by The Cuba Press in 2018. 

Easthope writes: “A found poem, thanks to Google alerts and the anthology of New Zealand cricket poems, A Tingling Catch. I have lifted the tweets verbatim. The title also riffs off a Carl Sagan quote: ‘Our feeblest contemplations of the Cosmos stir us — there is a tingling in the spine, a catch in the voice, a faint sensation of a distant memory, as if we were falling from a great height. We know we are approaching the greatest of mysteries.’

NICOLA EASTHOPE

A twittering catch

timjonesbooks‎ A cool review for #cricket #poetry anthology “A Tingling Catch” in the Waikato Times Vin_diPietro‎ @marie_terese *trying to catch my breath, body tingling as I press my forehead against you I love you shaking my head in amazement* so much pawsitivlycorky‎ Having to use razor blades at work gives me a tingling sensation in my arms and a hurting in my heart that makes my throat catch. wildfeather‎ I really need to catch up on @Wendell_Howe. Seems he’s been involved in a 19^th Century antiquarian excavation! My archaeology sense is tingling. NJrugger45‎ Finished wringing socks dry. Have cold. At 5^th & Spring Garden, my mother’s “you’ll catch your death of pneumonia” senses are tingling. lisasalas‎ can smell the weekend… tingling with anticipation... hoping to catch the next sleep wave soon or else I’ll be writing more junk online... NarcissaBlack‎ @MissAuroraSin: Our eyes catch and suddenly my cheeks stain with a blush, body tingling and I feel like when we first started dating. Idle_Threat‎: Making my escape. You’ll never catch… um.. Wait.. Chipotlé senses tingling… this could be a trap, but I’ll just have to take that chance. MrLiqhtSkinnedd‎ RT @HaZeLeYeSMaMa: Ok this burning/tingling sensation; its ANNOYING ! It makes me catch an attitude - Yeast Infection. SullivanShadow‎ @To_Be_Empathic: He’s got me tingling all over. I pull back to catch my breath. We should stop. Before I start pulling off your clothes. seasidedolly‎ @d_h_morgan: WOOP WOOP Fantastic how’s them lovely bones holding up. Bet you’re feet are tingling, Water at last. Slowly slowly catch the Monkey X. onefiftysevenpm‎ @angelamachado @ktcronier: my ‘parents are going to say no’ senses are tingling. If it is definitely a no, catch you on the next tour. roastrestaurant‎: Catch of the day - Rainbow trout fillets with cauliflower, brown shrimps and mace butter... taste buds are tingling! copybychris‎ Dreamed I was chasing a mouse. Slapped my hand down to catch it. Woke myself up. I’d slapped my thigh so hard, my hand was tingling. Ouch. sighinstereo‎ Dear Pretentious Ponytail Guy, your conversation on interpreting Catch-22 is tickling my gag reflex. Does this actually get her tingling? Kyrisa_xoxo: Oww, almost just dropped my bass guitar, hit my elbow trying to catch it and now its tingling all down my arm :/ carpalcure: Tingling Hands, Palms, Fingers Are Early Signs of Carpal Tunnel ...: For these reasons, it’s important to catch…ThaWordsmith: I love salt n vinegar chips but I hate that first chip u eat that has u ready to catch a seizure from that tingling spot under yo jaw lol OnlyoneofmeJill: @strokinguy I think it looks cool. It feels kinda weird though it’s stopped tingling now. It’s actually comfier with a bra you don’t catch it. helloImShenaaz: Dr. Miracles styling foam is theeeeeee best. But there is a catch..it HURTS! Lol the tingling sensation isn’t where it’s at...AT ALL tho. weesels: if i could make perfection for you

i would.
if i could wrap my tingling stomach in words
and catch the warmth of your body in a net
or muse over the mathematics of your fingers
applying pressure to mine
                                          i would                         i would                        i would

Poem © Nicola Easthope

Nicola’s second book Working the tang is at The Cuba Press website, and her third book published in Australia by Walleah Press (Tasmania) is A Stoic Recovery of Disordered Seasons.

. 

Brian Turner’s 2011 NZ cricket poem

Brian Turner (1944-2025) ONZM was one of our leading poets and a former national Poet Laureate. He was also a sports writer working on rugby books for Josh Kronfeld, Anton Oliver and Colin Meads along with two books for Glenn Turner and wrote the cricket play "Finger's Up?".

His interests included cricket, cycling, hockey, mountaneering and golf. His brothers are Greg Turner golfer and Glenn Turner, the New Zealand cricketer and Master Batsman. Brian was a New Zealand hockey rep and played cricket at U23 level.

Brian contributed a number of poems to A Tingling Catch, including poems on Ken Wadsworth the New Zealand wicketkeeper who died early and Glenn Turner.

I had correspondence with Brian for a number of years and last published him in my journal broadsheet in May 2022. He died suddenly in February 2025. I found he had written a new cricket poem in 2011 in his collection Inside Outside (VUP). I will include his poem ‘At the Crease’ in the Tingling Catch archive.

BRIAN TURNER

At the Crease

Once past 60,
or thereabouts,
every day
seems like your debut
in a sport in which
your career
will be short.

Poem © Brian Turner

I wrote a rugby poem for Brian after reading the Inside Outside collection, it’s included in my book Sidelights (HeadworX, 2017):

MARK PIRIE

At the Try Line

For Brian Turner, after reading his collection, “Inside Outside”

I was thinking
how, in life, you’re
either ‘in’ or ‘out’,
or, as you put it,
Inside Outside.

And it’s best to be ‘in’.

Music, art, literature, sport,
love, work, fashion, politics;
it’s about success or failure,
riding them out, and as
Sean Fitzpatrick says,
“Winning Matters”.

At the try line, if you’re
not in, you’re out.

But you’re really
Inside Outside
all along.

Poem © Mark Pirie

Jenny Powell’s 2026 NZ cricket poem

Jenny Powell’s poem ‘Under Cover’ was noted in the Journal of the Cricket Society review of A Tingling Catch.

When Fairfield Books in England issued a new cricket poetry anthology Catching the Light in 2026, Powell was invited to contribute a new poem.

Powell’s poem ’Distance’ is a beautifully written piece on the social side of the game exploring 'teenage flutters of heart'. I will include it here in the Tingling Catch archive.

JENNY POWELL

Distance

Love was lit
during my gathering
of autographs

teenage flutters of heart
would fly to slips when he fielded.

At the crease
his art of defensive play
nudged me

into daydreams, his sure hands
holding mine under cover

of waterfall willows,
our lips inching across
the boundary.

After the rituals of lunch, my father would gather
our belongings, march to the open stand

where first kisses
were interrupted by distance
and sunburn.

Poem © Jenny Powell

Check out the new anthology Catching the Light available from Amazon and Fishpond in New Zealand.

Humbert Wolfe’s 1924 English cricket poem

Years ago, John Quilter, the late Wellington bookseller showed me a book he had by Humbert Wolfe. Quilter, a knowledgeable person in the book trade, had noted a cricket poem in Wolfe’s Kensington Gardens (1924). The edition he had was a reprint from 1927 by Ernest Benn Limited, UK. I bought the copy from him.

Subsequent checks of cricket poetry anthologies have shown the poem by Wolfe has never been included in anthologies.

Wolfe was a popular writer during the 1920s and is not read much nowadays. He was born in Milan in 1885 and was a British civil servant receiving a CBE and CB for his services. He died in 1940 at age 55. While working a job he found spare time to write and publish over 40 publications. Wolfe was made a commander of the Order of the British Empire.

The cricket poem in Kensington Gardens is amongst poems celebrating facets of daily life in the gardens. Flowers, trees, birds, fishes, animals, games, monuments, its palace, its navigation, and its people.

HUMBERT WOLFE

Cricket

My child, when we were children,
we played in the Garden at cricket
with a racket, a ball of rubber,
and a chestnut-tree for a wicket.

I carted the ball for sixes,
while you, from the very beginnings
of our knowledge of one another,
were bowled at the start of your innings.

It’s a queer thing, isn’t it surely,
that the good ones are always out,
and the bad ones are always batting,
and knocking the others about?

Poem © Humbert Wolfe

Humbert Wolfe, National Portrait Gallery

Spring Reads: Cricket Poetry by Arthur Salway

Review by Mark Pirie of Cricket Poetry by Arthur Salway (self-published, 2013).

Arthur Salway is an English cricket poet I came across on the world wide web when I googled ‘cricket poetry’ back in 2010. His website ‘Cricket Poetry’ came up. I contacted him through his website the year A Tingling Catch came out and he sent me a reply which I left as a comment to my blog article about him.

Salway eventually collected his poetry into a published volume available on book sites internationally like Amazon, AbeBooks, eBay and lulu in 2013. I thought it was worth purchasing and have added it to my list of favourite cricket books.

Salway’s book Cricket Poetry, Volume 1, includes about 47 poems written over a 20-year period, so not a prolific cricket poet but enough poems to make an impact on the cricket poetry scene internationally. The book is accompanied by photographs of schoolboy cricket (West Hill Park School, Titchfield, Hampshire). Salway wasn’t a good promoter of his work so hasn’t sent copies to the Journal of the Cricket Society or Wisden Cricket Monthly and is mostly not known to the cricket book community. He relied on people visiting his website now defunct.

He was in his 70s when the book was published and had recently retired from cricket at age 68. Salway’s biography on the back cover states: ‘He remembers watching Gloucestershire at Bristol as a boy and admiring the stroke play of Walter Hammond, Charlie Barnett, George Emmett, and the emerging Tom Graveney.’ An impressive list of English batsmen to have seen growing up.

Salway worked as a mathematics teacher living in Hampshire, England till his retirement. He was a club cricketer since his 40s, and had earlier been a schoolboy cricketer ‘successful enough’ and nursed into cricket by his father. In club cricket he was a spin bowler who batted where he was permitted in the order. Salway says: ‘Many of the poems were written for team evenings and are presented for your reading due to the insistence of his erstwhile team-mates.’ Salway hopes we will enjoy them and the poems are meant to be read by cricketers about the game we love.

So, what is the poetry like in Cricket Poetry? Salway is a rhyming poet, so the poetry is all in rhyme and rhythm, and it will interest readers of all ages. He’s not a wordsmith in the word-magic category but a competent enough writer and at times his knowledge of cricket history is impressive. ‘A turn of the wrist’ is a favourite of mine. I’ve mentioned it before on this site:

Soccer is won with cultured feet
And rugger with grit and grist;
But when cricket is played the difference is made
By a delicate turn of the wrist.

His subjects are wide ranging and offer poetical comments on English club cricket, T20 cricket, Brookfield School cricket, Hampshire CCC, cricket teas, the IPL ‘Indian Takeaway’, the Pavilion in winter, prep school cricket, the Ashes, the scorebook, the team kit bag, the Amateurs in county cricket, the cricket field, the Nightwatchman, and the English game. Salway is a proud Englishman: ‘Gone are the days, and what a shame, / When an England player had an English name / Like Larwood, Washbrook, Smith or Compton, / Born in Bradford, Bath or Brompton…’

‘A Winter’s Tale’ has a fine quatrain:

Blower’s voice drones on and on.
‘Oops! Another wicket gone!”
Luminaries then explain
Why Pietersen has failed again.

‘Fast Spin’ all cricketers can relate to:

When we were boys and striding to the wicket,
Learning life while we were playing cricket,
“The bowling good?” we’d ask as we went in;
Departing batsmen scowled & said, “Fast spin.”

One poem stood out to me ‘Tragedy at St Helen’s’:

It’s best, perhaps, it’s not for us to know
The time, the place, the manner we shall go.
We have no opportunity to choose
Nor ours an option that we may refuse.
But could we gentle Providence persuade
That darkest hours be somehow brighter made;
No fears, no pain, no suffering or remorse,
That life’s last stumblings happen in the course
Of pleasant pathways walked with many a friend.
So may we come at last to journey’s end.

And so it was. His umpire’s task was done,
His eyes still shielded from the passing sun,
The counting stones divided in his hand.
We miss, we mourn, we try to understand.
We would not strive to keep what we must lose
Nor take from him what we ourselves would choose.
Now other men must do as once he would,
Standing white-coated where he lately stood;
And cricket, Alcwyn’s lifelong, wise tutorial
Shall be, in its continuance, his memorial.

In July 2009, at St Helen’s Swansea, umpire Alcwyn Jenkins was struck by a ball thrown in from the outfield and died at the scene. The South Wales Cricket Association requested a poem to be read at the funeral. It is included in the collection in his memory. I’m reminded of the tragic death of Australian batsman Phil Hughes struck by a freak delivery.

I found much enjoyment in Salway’s poetry written with a sound knowledge of the game and recommend it to readers of cricket literature of all ages.

Previous posts on Arthur Salway:

Cricket Poetry – Arthur Salway’s cricket poems

Mark Pirie’s new poem on Imran Khan

The latest issue of the Journal of the Cricket Society, Spring 2026, arrived over a month or so ago. It carries articles on the imprisoned Imran Khan as well as a piece on Garry Sobers, who has since passed away in July. There is a large section of cricket book reviews.

The articles on Imran are by his biographer Christopher Sandford and Johnny Barclay. Sandford’s letter discusses his plight in Adiala Jail. Imran is currently serving a 14-year sentence for what the state describes as ‘land corruption’. Sandford says he is not in good health.

Barclay’s article offers some thoughts and reminisces of Khan as a player and cricketer in England. He compares Imran to Holding, John Snow the cricket rebel and poet, and Jofra Archer. Barclay is the President of the Cricket Society and a former Sussex player. Khan was lured to Sussex by Tony Greig. Barclay writes: “I once compared him to Nijinsky, so fluent was his bowling action from beginning to end.” (Nijinsky was a Russian-born ballet dancer and choreographer.) After cricket Khan entered politics working for a better world: ”Let us salute him for that.” Barclay ends with a message of hope for Imran continuing to pray.

Imran played 88 Tests and 175 ODIs for Pakistan, and is well remembered as a legend on and off the field and was adored by women.

I wrote a new poem (a triolet) thinking of Imran.

MARK PIRIE

Imran Khan

Imran’s run up & delivery was of beauty.
I grew up watching him steal the light.
A World Cup win, 1992, over Sir Ian.

Imran’s run up & delivery was of beauty
compared to Nijinsky. His bat plundered.
Now a political prisoner, lost from sight.

Imran’s run up & delivery was of beauty.
I grew up watching him steal the light.

Poem © Mark Pirie

Anonymous 1925 English cricket poem

A poem I found while researching the Christchurch Star newspaper was an anonymous poem on raising the seam of the ball in England. It was published during the 1925 season. A county team was skittled.

I sent it to The Cricket Society News Bulletin in 2018. It was particularly topical that year with three Australians serving out their sentences for ball tampering. Cameron Bancroft had been caught by TV cameras trying to rough up a side of the ball with sandpaper. Captain Steve Smith and David Warner were also involved. The match was the Third Test, Australia v South Africa, in Cape Town, March 2018.

I’ve found no details on the match in England the 1925 poem refers to.

ANON

Cricket Magic

English bowlers are alleged to have “skittled” out a county team by raising the seam of the ball.

Now, did the bowlers raise the seam,
  Or make it seem to rise,
And foozle with a magic gleam
  The luckless batsman’s eyes,
As, sharply spinning from the pitches
  The leather shot or skied,
How have the batsman wished those stitches
  Were in the bowler’s side.

But since the art of tit for tat
  Is every batsman’s cue,
Perchance to herringbone the bat
  Might pull the striker through;
If cricket hangs upon a thread,
  Perhaps ’twere not in vain
To knit and purl the splice instead
  Of promptly raising Cain.

(From the Christchurch Star, c1925)

André Surridge’s NZ cricket haiku

Andre Surridge (1951-2019) appeared recently with a prose poem written in 2014. I also found a haiku sequence on cricket he wrote in 2015 in the same magazine, Valley Micropress. Surridge is mostly known as a haiku poet internationally winning the Kyoto Museum for World Peace Award (Japan), the Jane Reichhold International Prize (USA) and the Janice Bostok International Haiku Award (Australia). Enjoy.

ANDRÉ SURRIDGE

First XI

vital toss

the coin lands

in the umpire’s hat

slip cordon

the shape of a sickle

wheatfield beyond

fast bowler

his run-up starts

at the sight screen

a snick

spilt at second slip

the bowler’s teapot

a nervy prod gully gobbles the catch

sharp bouncer

the star batsman

seeing stars

later…

change of pace

the leggie spins one

out of his beard

escorting the ball to the boundary a portly fielder

over the fence

& out of the ground

a towering six

record partnership

batsmen meet mid-pitch

for a fist bump

close of play

happy to sign anything

the smiling centurion

Poems © André Surridge

(from Valley Micropress, November/December 2015)

Previous posts on Andre Surridge: 

André Surridge’s new cricket tanka

André Surridge’s 2014 NZ cricket poem

Other haiku posts:

Cyril Childs's NZ cricket haiku

Tony Beyer’s NZ cricket haiku

Vishak Sivakumar’s 2019 NZ cricket song

Vishak Sivakumar is a writer I came across doing key word searches in the National Library catalogue recently. I don’t know anything about him.

He composed words for a song called ‘Cricket Ball’ that was published in Toitoi: A Journal for Young Writers and Artists. I will include it here in the Tinging Catch archive.

VISHAK SIVAKUMAR

Cricket Ball

You are round and sturdy.
You are tightly gripped in my hand.
You fly through the air like an energetic eagle.
You hit a bat as hard as metal.
You hit a stiff stump which glows bright red.
You land in hands as soft as cotton.
You hear cheering as loud as a stampeding elephant.
Sometimes you soar too high and are never seen again.

Song © Vishak Sivakumar

(from Toitoi: A Journal for Young Writers and Artists, No. 16, Winter 2019)

André Surridge’s 2014 NZ cricket poem

André Surridge (1951-2019) contributed poems to A Tinging Catch and my football anthology Boots. He has a sporting interest. I came across his work when we were both regularly published in Tony Chad’s magazine Valley Micropress.

He is known as a haiku and tanka writer. Tanka is a Japanese form of five lines, two more lines than a haiku. He published Wings for You: Selected Poems 1968-1990 in 1993, and wrote 15 one act plays. His final book One Hundred Petals was haiku and senryu published the year he died.

I came across another cricket poem of his, a prose poem. It’s about a boy’s imaginary world with cricket while doing his homework: an essay on the French Revolution.

I liked it and will include it here.

ANDRÉ SURRIDGE

It isn’t cricket

It isn’t cricket. Well, how could it be? Where’s the first eleven, where’s the opposition? where’s the cricket bat, the ball, the bails, the stumps, the umpires, the pavilion, the crowd, the scoreboard and the commentators waving from an upstairs window?

It’s just a bedroom and a boy procrastinating over an essay on the French Revolution.

He’s kneeling on a mat between two single beds, one his, the other his younger brother’s. He thinks his bat is this wooden foot ruler and the ball a screwed up first page first attempt on the storming of the Bastille, one leg of the chair behind him is his all important wicket. He throws the ball at the bedroom wall and whacks it onto the candlewick bedspread. It’s a six, naturally.

The umpires call lunch and he rises from the pitch on one hundred and two not out.

What’s not to like?

Except the essay isn’t done and his stepfather will threaten him with a thick ear.

(from Valley Micropress, July 2014)

Poem © André Surridge

Previous posts on André Surridge:

André Surridge’s new cricket tanka

Bill Nelson’s 2014 NZ cricket poem

Bill Nelson (b. 1979) is an emerging poet. He has studied at the IIML. He’s published a poetry book, Memorandum of Understanding (2016) and a verse novel, Root Leaf Flower Fruit (2023), with Te Herenga Waka University Press.

I’ve written a verse novel myself, so am always on the lookout for fellow verse novelists.

His publisher’s blurb says of Memorandum of Understanding: "In his debut poetry collection Bill Nelson steps into John Coltrane's body and wears it around. He is a turtle disappearing into the sea. He plumbs the depths of business jargon. He takes singing lessons in Berhampore. He takes his grandfather roller skating. Funny, strange and arresting, these poems test our understanding of understanding".

I recently came across a cricket poem he wrote about watching cricket which his grandfather wasn’t into. I liked it and will add it to the Tingling Catch archive.

BILL NELSON

One day cricket

Like origami, oyster soup
and obscene phone calls

this is something your grandfather
was never into.

Ultimately it was up to you
upside down on the sofa

your head lolling on the floor
the net curtains lifting

and resetting, ready to catch
whatever comes hurtling in.

(From Sport 42, 2014)

Poem © Bill Nelson

Memorandum of Understanding by Bill Nelson,
Te Herenga Waka University Press, 2016

Harry Ricketts’ NZ cricket triolets

Harry Ricketts is an academic, biographer, poet and editor who turned his hand to cricket writing when he published How to Catch a Cricket Match, a guide to getting the most out of day’s Test cricket. It’s in my list of favourite cricket books. He also edited an anthology of New Zealand sports writing, which I reviewed on this site.

In 2024, he followed up this one-off cricket publication with a very impressive book Richie Benaud’s Blue Suede Shoes, co-written with historian David Kynaston and published by Bloomsbury. It received the Cricket Writers’ Club Derek Hodgson Book of the Year. It gives Ricketts some international notice for his cricket writing.

Ricketts is a former Wellington club cricketer and a former schoolboy cricketer in England. At Wellington College, he broke the school record for wickets in a season. He has a life-long association with cricket through playing and now writing on the game.

He contributed several poems to A Tingling Catch and has continued to write on cricket since then. His Bob Woolmer poem was included on this blog, and he has also written triolets on cricket.

Triolets are still a relatively rare form of poetry dating back to the 13th century. Thomas Hardy and Wendy Cope are well known writers of the English triolet. Both Ricketts and I have tried the triolet in New Zealand cricket writing. My book Slips (2021) includes a number of triolets. Cricket poet George Francis Wilson once wrote ‘An Over of Triolets’; one for each ball bowled.

The triolet usually has a repetitive element to it, the opening two lines being repeated at the end. The novelty can wear thin after a while but it’s still a form that’s interesting to me. I was brave to put out a book of triolets Old Hat in 2012. Rather than just putting several triolets in a collection as Ricketts did with Half Dark and Bonfires on Ice.

Here are Ricketts’ two cricket triolets:

HARRY RICKETTS

Wellington, late summer 2014

On the bank at the Basin the crowd applauds;
cicadas click-click their castanets.
Listen to the money’s slow, withdrawing roar.
On the bank at the Basin the crowd applauds.
‘Wellington is a city that’s dying,’
says the man with cold snapper eyes.
On the bank at the Basin the crowd applauds;
cicadas click-click their castanets.

(From Half Dark, VUP, 2015)

Cricket

Man, I never hit it, straight off the pad;
That was absolutely plumb, would’ve knocked out middle.
Just for a moment we’re Hadlee or Brad-
man then, never hit it, straight off the pad.
Quite why a neat late cut should make us glad,
and sad a slow full pitch to leg, is a great riddle.
Man, I never hit it, straight off the pad;
That was absolutely plumb, would’ve knocked out middle.

(From Takahē 80, December 2013)

Poems © Harry Ricketts

Harry Ricketts’ cricket book Richie Benaud’s Blue Suede Shoes is available on Amazon. Here’s a link to the publisher’s website: Richie Benaud’s Blue Suede Shoes: The Story of an Ashes Classic: David Kynaston: Bloomsbury Publishing - Bloomsbury

Previous posts on Harry Ricketts:

Harry Ricketts’s cricket poem for Bob Woolmer

Summer Reads: The Awa Book of NZ Sports Writing

Mark Pirie’s triolets:

Tingling Catch congratulates the All Blacks

Mark Pirie’s Martin Guptill poem

Mark Pirie's new cricket poem Norwood Room

Rob Franks’ new book with Ronald Cardwell: Every Picture Tells a Story, after Rod Stewart

Review by Mark Pirie of Every Picture Tells a Story: New Zealand Cricketers in the United Kingdom 1931 by Rob Franks and Ronald Cardwell (The Cricket Press Pty Limited, Cherrybrook, Australia, 2025).

Rob Franks is the official Kiwi Cricket Pages bibliographer, so his work is invaluable for checking his lists of New Zealand cricket poetry and cricket fiction. He keeps track of new books published and updates his bibliography.

Franks is also a researcher and writer and included one of my poems on Martin Donnelly and Keith Miller in a book of his. This year he sent me a beautifully produced book. It is published by Ronald Cardwell’s The Cricket Press Pty Limited, Australia, who know how to design and print cricket books like no other. He has been doing it for 50 years. This latest book Franks is co-author of with Cardwell is on the 1931 New Zealand team that toured England about a year after New Zealand received official Test status. It’s like an art catalogue of photos on the men who toured and has critical insights into a number of the key players, and what they got up to on the tour back then.

What got my attention is that Cardwell has used Rod Stewart’s album title Every Picture Tells a Story for the concept of the book. Stewart is best known as a footy man with his own football pitch at his house. Cardwell says he is also a cricket observer.

The players I most recall are Milford Page the vice-captain, Stewie Dempster and Roger Blunt the batsmen, and Tom Lowry the captain. The photos offer a rare glimpse into the team at the time, besides stills of actual play against the English. My favourite photo is “Links golf” where skipper Lowry is seen ‘smoking’ the ball with a wooden driver. Nowadays plenty of New Zealand cricketers play golf too.

The image of “Play on day one of the First Test at Lord’s on 27 June 1931” is dramatic. The batsman has just played a shot. Stewie Dempster is the man hitting down the leg side. The photo “Gunn & Moore – bat inspection” has all the men in suits, stylishly attired and dapper. Roger Blunt examines a Gunn & Moore bat. My own bat in club cricket in Wellington was a GM Canon, liking the tradition of GM bats.

The series of photos is preceded by detailed biographies of the players. Jack Mills is interesting as he scored the first Test century in Wellington 1929-30. His career fell away. A batsman with talent unfulfilled. Stewie Dempster was the 'star quality' averaging 59.26 on the tour. He scored seven centuries on tour and was impressive.

The authors state at the beginning: “Each era reveals its own distinctive characteristics. It is insightful to spend time exploring the past, as it helps to contemplate the future. Look through the camera lens with us and learn about the players, their personalities and happenings that took place on a long-forgotten tour.” It’s a great piece of memorabilia, thanks to Rob for sending it my way.

Review © Mark Pirie 2026

Every Picture Tells a Story by Rob Franks and Ronald Cardwell (The Cricket Press, 2025)

As an addendum to this review, I offer my own poem I wrote for rockin’ Rod. Stewart was influenced by hard rock and blues with his good friend Ronnie Wood a guitarist and collaborator. I collected Stewart’s Gasoline Alley along with his Faces work and have a few double CD collections of his full career, as well as his recent albums.

MARK PIRIE

Rod Stewart

women go crazy
       for that hair
tousled and blond.

I like his voice
an injection of British soul
that maybe Sammy Hagar
gets close to in American rock

imagine if he had
taken up the apprenticeship
at Brentford Football Club

music wouldn’t be the same
without that Face
or ‘Maggie May’…

*

some nights
I’m on a downtown train
there’s hot legs
and a mandolin wind

some guys have all the luck.

(From Valley Micropress, August 2016)

Poem © Mark Pirie

Mark Pirie’s new poem on the White Ferns

This year I spent a frustrating time following the White Ferns at the World T20 in June while the men defeated England in a test series. We were knocked out and should have done much better with the team we had being former champions in 2024.

The tournament also marked the departure of three key players: Suzie Bates, Sophie Devine and Lea Tahuhu. Bates and Devine are all-time greats.

Bates finishes with 5982 Women’s ODI runs and 4758 Women’s T20I runs. Playing over 180 games for the White Ferns in both formats from 2006-2026. Bates finishes as New Zealand's record run-scorer in women's internationals, and the outright leading run-scorer in women's T20Is.

Devine is an all rounder and finishes with 4279 Women’s ODI runs and 3817 Women’s T20I runs. Devine picked up 111 Women’s ODI wickets and 158 Women’s T20I wickets. Playing over 150 games for the White Ferns in both formats from 2006-2026.

Impressive numbers for both players. Devine retires as the woman who led New Zealand to their first global title. Devine will also be remembered for her six-hitting exploits in Australia in the WBBL.

Tahuhu took 125 wickets in Women’s ODIs and 100 wickets in Women’s T20Is, quite a career and achievement.

Melie Kerr talked about how the White Ferns fared saying: "I remember my first World Cup was over here in 2017 and again we underperformed as a side, but you learn so much from loss and defeat and disappointment.”

MARK PIRIE

White Ferns Thoughts

The White Ferns bowed out of the World T20,
three players retiring from the game.

Devine and Bates the two all-time greats.
The White Ferns will be depleted

but with the rising star Izzy Sharp
they have genuine batting talent.

Melie Kerr wasn’t the dynamo in this
tournament that she has been in the past.

Coming off the back of her match-winning
performance at the Basin, she averaged 24.80.

New Zealand fans will be left to rue what might
have been, a narrow loss to the Windies,

a surprising defeat to Sri Lanka,
and the final defeat at the hands of England.

Last time, we were champions, a real feat in
White Ferns cricket. We hold on to that memory.

Poem © Mark Pirie