How cricket lost out to rugby in New Zealand

ENGLAND'S international season starts this week with a three-Test contest against a New Zealand side that is weaker for the loss of Shane Bond to the Indian Cricket League and the possible distraction of the Indian Premier League for their five late arrivals.

In June, an England rugby side, most likely under strength, will visit New Zealand. The fact that New Zealand's sporting public will be more interested in the rugby than the cricket is a consequence of historical factors and the failure of cricket to establish itself as part of the national consciousness.

A Yorkshireman, Captain James Cook, supposedly "discovered" New Zealand in 1769, though his contribution to cricket seems to have been with the opening up of the colony to military expedition rather than the actual playing of the sport.

Early English immigrants came from comfortable middle-class backgrounds and they erected monuments to a missed home, including cathedrals, public schools and cricket pitches.

Reference was first made to cricket as part of the Christmas festivities in 1842 and the first match was reported two years later. By the end of the decade, the sport was being played in most of the country's provinces.

Teams visited the colony from both Australia and England, though these were invitation and state rather than national sides. It was not until 1906-7 that the first MCC XI visited New Zealand.

This timing is important because it followed a successful rugby tour to Britain in 1905, in which New Zealand won all of their 35 matches.

Rugby had become established as a sport that reflected labouring principles of hard work. The qualities of team spirit and group solidarity would thrive on the rugby field in a way that was absent on the more class-exclusive cricket pitch.

Rugby better assisted the search for national identity. Cultural forms of expression had failed to produce an international figure from the arts, the sciences and literature in the 19th century that could have developed a feeling of identity.

The opportunities of competing against Australia and England in sport would lift the profile of the new land. Rugby provided this vessel and, as of 1914, New Zealand national sides had played 123 matches against overseas teams and, importantly, only lost seven games.

In contrast, cricket represented the link with the "mother country." Early contests between Canterbury and Otago, for example, saw the sides adopt the Oxbridge playing colours.

The visit of James Lillywhite's English side in 1877 was marked by a procession and the firing of salutes, with prominent members of the public making it their duty to be seen at these spectacles.

This loyalty was hardly repaid, with the English waiting until 1930 to play their first Test match in New Zealand, while the return visit came a year later.

International cricket became a feature in New Zealand's sporting life, but, against this, the 1924 All-Black rugby team had returned from their undefeated tour of Britain as national heroes and they had beaten the British Lions 3-1 at home in 1930.

In addition, people such as Wimbledon tennis champion Anthony Wilding and world heavyweight boxing title contender Tom Heeney gave New Zealanders national heroes and figures in the world's eye.

New Zealand would have to wait 26 years before they won their first Test match.

Since then, they have enjoyed some wonderful moments and entertained with some fabulous cricketers.

But never has cricket threatened to rival rugby in the national consciousness, another victim of a historical and social process that placed a class-ridden ethos before the wider benefits of sport.