HISTORY BASKS AT BASIN

One of the cult venues in Cricket, Wellington’s Basin Reserve has rich history of tradition, Culture and Symbolism. It wouldn’t be wrong to say that iconic venue is the heartbeat of New Zealand Cricket. Abhishek Srivastava takes a peek in Country’s Cricket Mecca and brings out some of the sweet and bitter memories of Basin Reserve in this special story

Basin Reserve-  A place where New Zealand Cricket soul resides

When surveyor William Mein Smith decided to make his shallow swamp for a dock little did he knew that swamp will become the face of the cricket in country. But he did made it a dock where  canal running down Kent and Cambridge Terraces lurked on plans until uplift from the 1855 earthquake all but drained the reserve. In 1857 a group of prominent citizens petitioned the Wellington Provincial Council to set it as a cricket ground. Cricket which had its roots in New Zealand thanks to British influence needed some place to fill and ultimately when the city council came to knew that free laborers were available, they were used in order to fill the swamp and in 1863 the prisoners added the fill however in 1866 a citizen’s committee decided it to use it as a cricket ground. Prisoners from Te Aro Gaol were use to fill up the drainage and thereby making it playable.

In December of 1866 those people who were interested in construction of cricket ground in Wellington were called at hotel Osgood. A committee of six, plus three trustees, met a sub-committee of the Board of Works, and the Basin Reserve was leased for three years as a cricket ground at an annual rental of €25. Thus, on 11 December 1866, the Basin Reserve formally became Wellington’s home of cricket. In 1868 the first cricket match was played between a volunteer team and a team from HMS Falcon.

Watching cricket from RA Vance Stand has its own beauty

The Grandstand was built in 1868 and more money was spent to improve the facilities in 1871-1872. 30^th November 1973 was historic day in history of Wellington cricket as Basin reserve hosted its initial first class game. Wellington played against Auckland in that game.

At Pier Hotel on evening of 22^nd October 1875, the foundation of Wellington Cricket Association was laid. The first international cricket match played at the Basin Reserve was against Lilywhite’s All England XI on 5 February 1877.

In 1884,a crucial deed was signed between Crown and Governor- General of New Zealand thereby giving Basin Reserve forever for the purpose of  cricket. The Grandstand was constructed on New Year’s Eve in 1925 at a cost of €16,710. Today this place constitutes New Zealand Cricket Museum. In 1979-80 the R.A Vance Stand which is soul of the stadium along with eastern bank and current seating were built up. The William Wakefield Memorial was reconstructed in 2003 by the city council.

The Famous memorial at the heart of Basin

24^th January 1930 was historic day for Basin Reserve as it hosted its first ever Test against England. It took New Zealand 39 years though to register their first Test win at the Basin, in 1969 , they defeated West Indies to give home crowd to savor a Test win. New Zealand didn’t lost a Test at Basin Reserve for almost 26 years (1968-1994),their ever improving record was evident in their domination at home of  country’s cricket.

It is the only New Zealand sports ground on the National Heritage list. The Scenic Basin reserve has grass banks to the east, with trees behind and William Wakefield Memorial in the middle. There are ample covered seating opposite in the fanciful colonial Museum Stand (home, unsurprisingly, to the New Zealand Cricket Museum)

William Wakefield Memorial - The Founder of Wellington

With time Cricket grounds have become high-tech and that’s why in terms of  hosting T20 games some of the new grounds are preferred. However Basin Reserve still is considered to be the soul of New Zealand’s cricket. A number of New Zealand’s memorable win have come at the Basin. It was here only when New Zealand registered their first ever Test victory against England in February 1978.

In February 1986, Richard Hadlee became the first ever New Zealander to take 300 wickets when he dismissed Alan Border here at Basin Reserve; it was a proud moment for country’s cricket fraternity which has always been underachiever. 

Five years later in February 1991, the iconic ground saw Martin Crowe and Andrew Jones stitching a world record 467 runs against Sri Lanka, a partnership which not only saved New Zealand’s unbeaten run at Basin Reserve since 1968 but also created the then highest record for a partnership for any wicket in Test cricket history.

Basin Reserve has history of records 

The ground has seen the best of New Zealand’s cricket and also the worst of it, in 1995 the team succumbed to their worst ever defeat in Tests against West Indies, a New Zealand team going through a phase of rebuilding (1992-1997) was crushed mercilessly by Courtney Walsh’s team.

Basin Reserve has been mirror of New Zealand’s cricket, from 1930-1970s, New Zealand were considered to be underachievers and during this duration they could only won 1 of the 11 Tests played here. From 1970s to 1990s when New Zealand witnessed the rise of some of the finest names like Sir Richard Hadlee, Martin Crowe, Jhon Wright, Andrew Jones, Richard Collinge and Ian Smith, they went to be unbeaten for next 26 years (1968-1994) during which they won 6 out of 15 Tests and remaining 9 were draws. This was the time when New Zealand produced their best team and was unbeaten in home series between 1980-1992.

The picket fence make Basin Reserve more beautiful

It has also witnessed a fall in country’s cricket during mid 90’s (1992-1997) when the team was surrounded by number of issues. On the one hand the team was not neither able to replicate the standards set by it predecessors on the ground or off the ground. New Zealand could not win a Test for 8 years at Basin Reserve. Between 1990-1998, they played 6 Tests, out of which loosing 3 and drawing 3 of them. It truly mirrored the struggle of New Zealand in mid nineties (1992-1997).

Sir Richard Hadlee had astonishing success at Basin Reserve, in 1986 he took his 300th Wicket here

It was here only that the team started to rise again in 1997 and saw some of the finest wins under Stephan Fleming’s captaincy. Simon Doull’s Boxing Day spell against India or a remarkable win against West Indies started an era where the team performed amicably. It was at the Basin where Brendon McCullum batted for two days to become first and only Kiwi to rack up a triple hundred in Test cricket.

Martin Crowe's 299 came here in 1991 

Basin Reserve has seen the up and downs of country’s cricket, it can tell us how healthy the heartbeat of New Zealand cricket is and this is the reason why it could be rightly said that history basks at basin .