Shell, the perfect sponsored marriage

Part of New Zealand cricket's tradition has slipped away with the news that Shell will no longer sponsor our domestic competitions.

When a wrinkled one, such as myself, starts to talk about tradition and sponsorship in the same wheeze it might seem time to put on the carpet slippers and trade-in the exercycle.

Yet Shell became the most munificent supporters of cricket in New Zealand with a gentlemanly regard for the ethics of the game and the support of those media people who covered cricket on newsprint, radio wave or television screen. Mainly because there was such a strong and sensible cricketing current running through the Shell administrations over the last 25 or so years.

One of the first Shell men to work toward NZ cricket sponsorship was Trevor Barber, the former dashing Wellington captain who deserved more than one Test cap. Barber was with Shell in Auckland, a longish putt from the Herald office where I worked, and with a congenial hostelry just across the road. Barber, and perhaps Shell, did not want to belittle the great history of the Plunket Shield, and for a time there was the suggestion the two famous names be tacked together.

My comment to Barber was that a hybrid trophy would offer no respect to Lord Plunket, nor sufficient commercial clout to Shell. So the Shell Trophy and later the Shell Cup came into existence. And flourished from Day One.

When the sponsorship was first announced at Lancaster Park, David Tudhope, the head serang for Shell, politely side-stepped when I asked the cash amount of the three-year-sponsorship. That was a very sensitive issue, said Tudehope, not least because Shell was in the process of a wage blarney with their drivers, and they might not like the idea of Shell diverting thousands of dollars to cricket sponsorship.

Why not ask the drivers what they think about the sponsorship, was my suggestion. Some days later Tudehope phoned back. The drivers thought the cricket sponsorship was a cracker idea, and by the way, it is about $120,000 over the first three years.

With that basically sensible, straight-shooting approach the Shell sponsorship became a valuable and perfectly natural part of cricket coverage throughout New Zealand.

It helped, of course, that there was a strong strand of cricket support among the Shell top brass. Tom McArthur almost overnight became a permanent and popular part of Auckland cricket. Barber flew the flag bravely, so did Barry Dineen later on, and doubtless there was similarly warm reaction throughout the country.

In Auckland, Shell took over the media briefing and launch of each season - perhaps a couple of dozen folk, a few drinks and nibbles, a supply of that invaluable Cricket Almanack, and a generally genial introduction to another summer. Lately, and inevitably, the style of sponsorship changed. Shell began to direct more and more money to wildlife and charitable causes. In fact, with the heavier tread of the sponsors who clambered aboard the international team wagon, Shell must have wondered whether their loyalty was being over-stretched, their long financial support no longer given the strong billing it deserved.

So it was probably inevitable that Shell, no longer the centre of cricketing attention, gradually turned its chequebook in other directions. But at least they left New Zealand cricket by the front door, and in style.

Cricket will be lucky to gain such a loyal and long-service replacement for Shell. My only hope is that it is a sponsor with a handy headline-sized handle. Many years ago when the New Zealand Motor Corporation sponsored one-day cricket the NZMC principals sometimes wondered why they could not get their sponsorship mentioned in newspaper headlines or in the introductory paragraph of a match report. They were told that if they re-labelled the sponsorship as providing the Austin Shield or the Vauxhall Cup they would get more newspaper mileage. No-one in their right mind would throw the full New Zealand Motor Corporation Knockout into a headline or story. Surely there is a sponsor out there with a neat four or five-letter title so the tradition of the Shell series, Trophy and Cup, can be maintained.