Wellingtonian – Mark Pirie’s Martin Crowe poem

Prior to the Earthquake Relief Cricket Match at the Basin, my poem on Martin Crowe’s dismissal for 299 appeared in The Wellingtonian (10 March 2011), the community newspaper edited by Joseph Romanos in Wellington. The poem was first published by Tony Chad in his poetry mag Valley Micropress (April 2009) and also appears in the anthologies ESAW Christmas Surprise 2009 and A Tingling Catch:

MARK PIRIE

The Record

When Crowe neared a triple,

cans flew in celebration.

He wouldn’t do it, said one.

The board read 299,

The hush implied a triple.

He needed just the one,

to dab it, play it cool.

It was going to be a spectacle.

Greatbatch watched, ready to run.

But oh – he snicked one.

Poem © Mark Pirie 2009

Author’s Note: New Zealand vs Sri Lanka, First Test, Jan 31-Feb 4, 1991. During the match Andrew Jones (186) and Martin Crowe (299) combined for a then World Record partnership of 467 for the Third Wicket. Crowe’s 299 is the Highest Test Score by a New Zealand batsman. The record was later surpassed by K C Sangakarra and Mahela Jayawardene’s partnership of 624 for Sri Lanka against South Africa, Colombo, 27 July 2006. Mark Greatbatch was at the non-striker’s end when Crowe was finally dismissed.

Mark Pirie listed by Sri Lanka Dot Com

I was excited to find myself listed on the Sri Lanka Dot Com information and news portal: http://www.srilankadot.com/wiki-Mark_Pirie

This is likely to be from the publication of A Tingling Catch. I have followed Sri Lanka’s cricketers since the 1980s. I remember staying up late as a boy to watch New Zealand play Sri Lanka in the televised One-Day Tri Series in Australia. Some of my favourite players of that time were Aravinda de Silva and Arjuna Ranatunga. I watched Aravinda make 267 against New Zealand in a Test Match at the Basin Reserve. Nowadays I follow Mahela Jayawardene and K C Sangakkara’s scores. Sri Lanka, a small cricketing nation, produces great cricketers. Muttiah Muralitharan holds the world record for Test wickets, the first to reach 800.

Yet Sri Lanka doesn’t have much contact with New Zealand in a literary sense. Today, however, I picked up a copy of Jean Arasanayagam’s poems in English. Surprisingly The Rimu Publishing Company Ltd, Hamilton, New Zealand, published her collection, Trial by Terror, in 1987. Jean’s poems concern the national tragedy of civil war. The poet speaks: “These poems record the history of violence in my country, Sri Lanka. They record a personal involvement and a statement of despair. The poems from the refugee camp of 1983 record an authentic experience, the beginning of alienation, and the polarization and purgation of pity. You can never be merely an observer in this context. Art and literature are documentations of the crisis of violence and despair. The serious poet is committed to recording the truth as it happens to everyone and everywhere…” I have deposited my copy into the Poetry Archive of New Zealand Aotearoa if anyone wishes to read and view it. Like Wellington-based African refugee poet Yilma Tafere Tasew’s Kenyan refugee camp poems, Arasanayagam’s poems are a powerful reminder of the human devastation caused by civil war in a well-liked and friendly cricketing nation.