10 people in and around Kiwi cricket this week

A former New Zealand first-class cricket had an integral role in this week's Melbourne Cup horse race at Flemington. The trainer of Kiwi hope Nom du Jeu was none other than Murray Baker, a legspinner for Central Districts in the 1960s and 70s. It didn't place.

Keep an eye out for another Kiwi cricketer at Flemington on Thursday too – former opener Terry Jarvis is the owner of Rocha, who he bought for $A400,000 in 2007. Rocha lines up in the VRC Oaks, having won the Wakeful Stakes on Saturday.

The Beige Brigade etched another notch on the belt of its cricket periphery with an eye-catching inclusion in The Guardian Weekend edition this week. A feature article on the ills of world cricket? The game’s most magnificent moustaches? An insight into how to create a global cricket supporters' network? No - we were the answer to Q3 of Thomas Eaton's sports quiz on page 118. Pacey financier and father to a quartet of sons, Geoff Allott is set to become the new general manager of cricket for NZC in March. The new role is the third most important role in the recently restructured organisation behind the CEO and the Chairman. The appointment announcement was fast forwarded after it was leaked to the Dominion Post's Jonathan Millmow on Friday night.

The contenders for Jacob Oram's replacement in the Test team. Babyfaced assassin Tim Southee is likely to come into the XI for Jeetan Patel, but in Oram's position, the jury is out as to whether (a) Grant Elliott is retained; (b) there is set to be a recall for another long individual, Peter Fulton who impressed on the recent New Zealand A tour; or (c) a bolter return for genuine all-rounder James Franklin, set to make his comeback to domestic first-class cricket after a long-term injury.

Otago captain Craig Cumming is a type 1 diabetic. Up until now, slogger Craig McMillan was the only high profile Kiwi cricketer to have publicly acknowledged his wrestle with the condition.

A lack of cricket coverage was credited with a slump in the radio ratings of the country's major sports radio station, the imaginatively-named Radio Sport. The Herald reported: "TRN said Radio Sport is closely tied with cricket, and that causes a natural seasonal shift in figures". After a series of scandalous domestic violence allegations levelled at breakfast host Tony Veitch, he subsequently left his job. His replacement was none other than former opener Mark Richardson who started behind the mic this month.

Merv Hughes has been talking his batting prowess up at the expense of our very own Dipak Patel. He was reported as saying that Michael Clarke’s slog sweep reminded him of himself. “I smacked Patel for five sixes in an over. Thereafter, I called him 6-pack Dipak." Not quite big fella. You hit four sixes in one day in an outrageous knock of 45 at Lancaster Park in 1993 - but only three were off New Zealand's greatest off-spinner of the 1990s. One ended up on the grandstand roof, but he got you out in the end.