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Jesse Ryder salutes his team-mates - Source: Photosport -
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"We're Drinking For You, Jesse"
Spotted at a recent one-day international at Eden Park, the above banner nicely encapsulates the current sentiment towards New Zealand's newest cricketing cult hero.
As a batsman he may be almost without peer in this country, but Jesse Ryder remains one of the boys.
He may have looked supremely at ease in carting some of the world's best bowlers to distant boundaries this summer, but you get the feeling he'd be just as comfortable waxing lyrical about it in the pub half an hour later.
And in an age rife with curfews, over-coaching and robotic sportsmen pumped full of cliches and management-speak, the public gravitates towards flawed geniuses such as Ryder who remind us, however briefly, that sportsmen are living, breathing, drinking, fallible human beings just like you and I.
It's the same reason why Tiger Woods will win far more golfing majors than his countryman John Daly (12 more at last count), but the colourful Daly will win more hearts.
Where Ryder differs from Daly's ilk is that he appears - at least in recent times, anyway - to have struck a balance between excelling as a professional sportsman and enjoying the odd drink or 12 in his spare time.
The burly left-hander has had a summer to savour. For a man who this time 12 months ago was on the sidelines nursing a sore hand and a sore head, he looks so mature and composed that it's hard to believe he hasn't been on the scene for years.
Ryder's occasionally-boisterous off-field persona is at odds with his laconic demeanour at the crease. He seems fully immune to the panic that grips the rest of New Zealand's top order when the bowlers have their tails up and the ball is moving around.
He came into bat at 40/3 in Hamitlon, and 23/3 in Napier. Both times he batted as if his side were 300/3, playing each ball with aplomb and authority. It's amazing how the devil in the bowlers and the demons in pitch suddenly disappear when he takes up the battle.
The unsightly heaves and swipes at wide balls that have proven his downfall so often in the shorter forms of the game are gone, allowing his smooth, along-the-carpet strokeplay to come to the fore.
Not that Ryder is a one-trick pony by any means. His bowling and fielding too have come on in leaps and bounds, literally. He has become almost a talismanic figure with ball in hand; Daniel Vettori's lucky charm, just as Nathan Astle was to Stephen Fleming.
Ryder has played an increasingly important role with the ball, stifling the Indian batting in Hamilton and snaring the immovable Rahul Dravid in the first innings in Napier. He is fast developing into a "golden arm" bowler with an Astle-esque knack for picking up wickets seemingly out of nowhere.
Searching high and low for wickets at the Gabba last November, Vettori threw the ball to Ryder and he obliged by dismissing Brad Haddin in his first over in test cricket. Later, he clean bowled Michael Clarke two runs short of his century to send a wave of schadenfreude up and down the country not experienced since Mark Richardson caught Shane Warne on the boundary for 99 back in 2001.
Not only that, but Ryder has displayed the kind of feats of athleticism that can lift an entire side in the field. He may not be lightning fast over twenty metres, but he's shown himself to be far more nimble than many of his trimmer bowling colleagues.
Stunned viewers could've been forgiven for thinking they'd just seen Paul Collingwood or Jonty Rhodes rise high to snaffle a catch in the gully off Zaheer Khan to terminate India's first innings in Hamilton. Ryder pulled off a similarly athletic effort at third slip to dismiss MS Dhoni in Hamilton, only for ambiguous television replays to grant the Indian captain a reprieve.
Ironically, it might be the case that Ryder's wayward past has actually left him better equipped to succeed at Test level.
As far back in 2003, his name was mentioned in the same breath as Ross Taylor's as a star in the making. But while Taylor kept his head down in and his international career slowly but surely blossomed, Ryder was shunned by selectors, his penchant for booze and off-field incidents weighing heavily against him.
Ryder has had to wait his turn, churning out big scores in domestic cricket and developing a thirst for runs that manifested itself in his marathon effort in Napier.
Rather than be viewed as an act of churlishness, his anger at finally being dismissed for 201 spoke volumes for his attitude and love for batting.
"I had Crowe's record [of 299] in my eyesight there", he later admitted. "To not get that, or not even get close to it was pretty disappointing".
He should not lose too much sleep, however. He is just 24, after all, and looks more equipped to reach the elusive triple-century mark than any New Zealand batsman since Crowe himself.
Ryder's innings in Napier will give the Black Caps a much-needed dose of confidence ahead of the third Test in Wellington starting Friday. Despite one talkback host's astonishing supposition that a draw represented a moral victory to India, it's the home side who will take all the momentum into the series decider.
New Zealand dominated India throughout and, despite being unable to land the killer blows on days four and five, never gave the tourists any quarter on a featherbed Napier wicket.
The prospect of a drawn series against the highly-rated Indians should be all the motivation the Black Caps need to carry their form into the next Test, while for Ryder, a place in the record books beckons.
He needs to score 232 runs in his next five innings to become the fastest Black Cap to 1,000 Test runs, beating the record of 20 innings jointly held by Mark Richardson and John F. Reid. Given the form he's in, it would be unwise to bet against him scoring the bulk of those runs in Wellington.
Twelve months can be a long time in a young man's life. These days it seems the only thing Jesse's thirsty for is more runs.
Long may it last, Jesse. And don't worry, if you can bring up another ton at the Basin we'll do all the drinking for you.
