By Michael Norwood
February 23 2013

With the dust still settling on the one day series between New Zealand and England, attention is now quickly turning to the three test match series, which starts in Dunedin on March 6th, and with it will bring a mini army ready to cheer the England Cricket Team on..... 

Whilst the win in the Twenty20 series and the one just acheived in the fifty over format are most welcome, it is the longest form of the game, that captures the imagination of the Barmy Army, and all those that follow the England Cricket team abroad.

Over the next week or so, there is expected to be upto 2,000 cricket fans descend on New Zealand, to follow the three test matches and hopefully cheer on an England victory.

2013 is certainly no cheap year for followers of this beautiful game, as back to back Ashes series will certainly test the purse strings somewhat.

Add to that a weakening pound against the New Zealand dollar, and the sight of shorter beer snakes popping up around New Zealand test venues, could be a feature over the month of March.

They still do it of course, one way or another, that is to travel in their many of many hundreds and large groups, and the sight of full test venues*, mainly of England Cricket Fans, will once again be on our TV screens over the next few weeks.

(*Auckland, and in particular Eden Park might be a little half full, due to the sheer 55,000 capacity and it being a Rugby Venue first up!)

The Australian's try and copy the antics of the following hoardes, but they are no match for the Barmy Army, whilst other nations simply embrace the amount of visitors descending on their nation and join in with the fun.

On a New Zealand sports forum, one poster wrote about the Barmy Army "They were brilliant in 2008....the 4th Division football club banners, the bugle etc."

Those that are traveling are having to hastily re-arrange spending budgets, due to the strength of that pound, with some citing that for the tour 5 years ago, they had an extra 1,000 New Zealand dollars, compared with the same amount of pounds sterling this time around.

Still, with discussions continuing about the furutre of test cricket, which is often played in half or near empty stadiums, whilst ever the Barmy Army are following cricket, there will be no shortage of interest when England are playing, that is for sure.

We, at England Cricket Sportnetwork, are delighted to let our readers and visitors to this website know, that we have a couple of representives from ECS, who will be in Wellington and Auckland for the 2nd and 3rd test matches. We are looking at ways to bring you regular updates/images and videos from our tour, which excitingly lasts for around 3 weeks.

New Zealand Set for Barmy Army Invasion

Discussion started by England Cricket (IP Logged), 23/02/2013 20:52

England Cricket
23/02/2013 20:52

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