Coney series to tell the players' history of NZ cricket

Like a squirrel getting out and gathering nuts to store away for winter, former New Zealand cricket captain Jeremy Coney has been storing cricketing gems for the summer and an in-depth series of television documentaries to be screened by SKY Television.

While documentaries have been done on the history of New Zealand cricket before, Coney has focused not so much on the matches and the feats but more on the characters and stories of those who have played the games.

The series is called The Mantis and the Cricket and is scheduled to start on December 18, the day New Zealand opens its domestic international cricket season with the first Test against Bangladesh in Hamilton.

Several players have been interviewed on tape for the series which was originally intended to be done in eight shows but which is already looking like it will be extended.

Restraints have meant that Coney hasn't been able to talk to as many players as he would like but there is a chance that he will yet get to talk to more veterans of the Kiwi game.

"Getting them to tell their stories has been what I have been after. There's not a lot in terms of footage that hasn't been seen before, but there are some nice stories that haven't been heard," Coney said.

As a former Test player Coney has found the exercise something of a voyage around the game he played, stimulating and informative, and he hopes his series will be the same for cricket enthusiasts.

"It has given my appreciation of our history a lot of depth and has rounded it out. I was not one to be immersed with the history of cricket when I was younger.

"But to meet and talk with the people who made the history has been special.

"It was a privilege to go and see the old players and they have answered everything I asked them.

"Some have been quite straight about they felt about things at the time," he said.

Coney said Walter Hadlee and John Reid had been invaluable as they spanned so much of the first era he is pursuing in the series. There was also film of the late Bert Sutcliffe that was made in the year before he died, as well as some archive material SKY held that had not been seen before.

Others like Matt Poore, had some lovely stories to tell about the 1955/56 tour of India and Pakistan, including the fact that the players had their own servants on the tour, and the occasion on which one of the servants did his work as the team left the hotel one morning and later the same day walked out to umpire a Test match.

Historian Don Neely and former commentator Iain Gallaway had been other well-known identities who had been involved along with Jack Kerr, the 1937 tourist and manager of the 1953/54 team to South Africa and a chairman of the New Zealand Cricket Council, and Tony MacGibbon, who toured with the New Zealand side during the mid-1950s and Johnny Hayes and Merv Wallace.

New Zealand had struggled to find its way in international cricket to start with, and had made decisions almost against itself in the early days, such as when deciding professional players would not be included in the 1937 tour of England.

But there were other occasions when the part-timers from New Zealand made people sit up and take notice such as when the 1931 side dismissed the MCC for 48 at Lord's and managed a significant victory which immediately resulted in the side's one scheduled Test being lifted to three Tests.

"The whole project is very much in its infancy but I have enjoyed it. If it works well it may be continued.

"I think it is quite important from a historical perspective. There have been enough examples of why that is the case in the last couple of years," he said.

One aspect that did come through to him in talking to players related to the 1949 tour.

"I didn't realise the strength of feeling and character of the 1949'ers. Other New Zealand teams are envious of the position they hold in our game, and the 1999 side call themselves the 99'ers after going through England and winning two Tests and the series.

"But there was a real feeling of family in that 1949 side. It was after the war and they were going through that country, almost out of the trenches, it was an age of austerity and they were meeting each night and discussing their cricket and each was wanting each other to do well.

"Those sorts of values have changed now, but the series will be good for young people to learn about the game.

"I hope people will enjoy it," he said.