Why you should care about the Hawke Cup

In case you don’t already have strong feelings about our summer game, February could be the month you fall in love with cricket.

There are some, even within the Sport Southland office, who are less than enamoured with the sound of leather on willow, the blaze of white against emerald green, the slow application of pressure like a tourniquet which cricket is all about.

And the reason you could, and probably should, fall in love with cricket even before the arrival of Valentines Day, is the Southland cricket team.

Photo: Southland cricket captain Jason Domigan. Pic: Nathan Burdon

The holders of the Hawke Cup are the quiet achievers of Southland sport.

Unbeaten for the best part of three seasons, Steve Jackson and Jason Domigan’s men have lifted Southland cricket back to a position which many - even those with a deep affinity for the local game - questioned they would ever see again.

First, some history. The Hawke Cup is a trophy steeped in tradition in a sport which lives on tradition.

While first class cricket, the stuff played by Otago, Canterbury, Auckland, Wellington and the Districts - Central and Northern - often feels a world away, the Hawke Cup has been Everest for feeder unions, known as minor associations, like Southland, Northland and Nelson.

Yes, I know you are wondering why Southland feeds into the Otago team, and why it wouldn’t be better to have a Southern Districts. Of course, you are right, but that’s a discussion for another day.

Perhaps that’s the price the cricketing gods have required of us for a legendary Hawke Cup history.

Southland was the first holder of the Hawke Cup when it was introduced in 1910. It has had two significant tenures which have gone a long way towards ensuring we are one of the most respected associations in New Zealand.

Over four seasons from 1973 to 1977 Southland repulsed 14 challenges and from 1989 to 1992 15 challenges were sent packing by the team skipped by Kevin Burns.

Only Nelson, who withstood 28 challenges from 1958 to 1965, has done better.

That’s some of the background, but, beginning against Mid Canterbury on February 1, the 2018/19 Southland cricket team gets a chance to create its own history.

The signs are good. Hawke Cup challengers have to win the first innings, or outright, so defences are built on batting. The ideal scenario involves winning the toss, batting first and scoring long and large.

Southland, with a deep and talented batting lineup, have proved their ability this season to score north of 400 and grind their opposition into the dust.

In a time when it appears that sport has to be professional to matter, this amateur team matters, a lot.

It harks back to a time when athletes truly competed for the love of the game, to challenge themselves and to represent the people and the place they come from.

It’s reminiscent of the great days of grass track cycling, woodchopping and amateur athletics. Those things were all before my time, of course, but it’s worth repeating that phrase again, because we very really hear it used in anything but a cynical way these days - for the long of the game.

This isn’t intended as disparaging of the Southern Steel, the Sharks or the Stags, but the Southland cricket team offers us something different, and it’s that difference that is the reason I’d love to see the banks around the Queens Park oval littered with deck chairs and picnic blankets, hopefully for a full summer of Hawke Cup defences.

I was at high school during Southland’s last Hawke Cup tenure. I remember reading about those defences on the back page of the Southland Times. I loved cricket and lived cricket, despite a significant deficit in ability, and those stories played a part in that.

No shortage of hard work and planning has gone into creating this great era for Southland cricket and the game now gets a chance to reap the rewards.

My hope is that those rewards will not only include another long series of successful defences for this group of players, but the chance to ignite a love for the game in the next generation of boys and girls who aspire to represent Southland.