England's first international match on their two month tour of New Zealand is in the city known as "Tamaki-Makau-Rau" or the "maiden with 100 suitors".
Tamaki-Makau-Rau is the Maori name for the North Island city of where England play the first of two Twenty20 matches against New Zealand on Tuesday 5 February.
It earned its rather romantic name because it was reportedly a region coveted by many Maori tribes thanks to its temperate climate and dramatic landscape dominated by volcanoes.
The opening match is being played at what is considered by many as the country's leading sports stadium the 50,000-seat .
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Welcome to Ask Bearders, where Test Match Special statistician Bill "The Bearded Wonder" Frindall answers your questions on all things cricket.
Below are Bill's responses to some of your questions posed at the end of his last column and if you have a question for Bill, leave it at the end of this blog entry. Please do include your country of residence - Bill loves to hear where all his correspondents are posting from.
Bill isn't able to answer all of your questions, however. ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Sport staff will choose a selection of them and send them to Bearders for him to answer.
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There will be sympathy for David Graveney within the game after .
Always engaging, he opened up channels of communication within the selection process that simply never existed before.
It wasn’t too long ago that players learned their fate by listening to the sports desk on the radio but despite Graveney's recent difficulty in tracking down Matt Prior to tell him he had been left out for the tour to New Zealand, they can now expect a telephone call either of commiseration or congratulation.
Now the job has become fully professional with greater responsibility, Graveney could feel he deserved a crack, but 11 years is a long time in any role, and clearly the ECB felt that this was an opportunity to introduce fresh ideas.
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Welcome to Ask Bearders, where statistician Bill "" Frindall answers your questions on all things cricket.
Below are Bill's responses to some of your questions posed at the end of his last column and if you have a question for Bill, leave it at the end of this blog entry. Please do include your country of residence - Bill loves to hear where all his correspondents are posting from.
Bill isn't able to answer all of your questions, however. ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Sport staff will choose a selection of them and send them to Bearders for him to answer.
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Anybody who finds themselves surprised by the must have been living on a different planet for the past five years.
The unedifying drama unfolding in Sydney is the result of a number of issues which have been bubbling away beneath the surface with increasing intensity.
They all as Australia single-mindedly homed in on their record-equalling 16th Test victory, without giving a damn about the consequences on the way.
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Harsh, but fair I believe is the honest reaction to the selectors' decision to from both the Test and one-day squads for England's tour to New Zealand.
For all the runs he has scored in his 10 Tests - - behind the stumps and that, ultimately, is his principal role.
Sachin Tendulkar and VVS Laxman at the Oval last summer - Mahela Jayawardene twice on the way to his 213 at Galle - and there were others.
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Welcome to Ask Bearders, where statistician Bill "" Frindall answers your questions on all things cricket.
Below are Bill's responses to some of your questions posed at the end of his last column and if you have a question for Bill, leave it at the end of this blog entry. Please do include your country of residence - Bill loves to hear where all his correspondents are posting from.
Bill isn't able to answer all of your questions, however. ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Sport staff will choose a selection of them and send them to Bearders for him to answer.
Read the rest of this entry
