Good news for the 700 ticket holders - the weather for the first test against the West Indies in Dunedin next week looks promising.
It is early days to be predicting weather patterns but yesterday the MetService's 10-day forecast was suggesting fine periods for the first two days, with highs of 16degC and 15degC for Tuesday and Wednesday.
Thursday is warmer at 17degC but ''one or two showers'' were forecast, along with northeasterlies. Friday was shaping as fine again. Saturday was outside the 10-day period, so no forecast was available for the last day of the test.
Long-term forecasts are not always that reliable, though. The website has a disclaimer, pointing out forecasts and temperatures for the first four days are produced by meteorologists. The next six days are ''automatically generated by MetService's computer weather modelling system''.
Like always, fans will just have to keep their fingers crossed and hope for some sun.
New Zealand Cricket reported strong interest in the match, with 700 tickets sold.
The majority of those tickets were sold through a priority ticketing initiative which encourages people to purchase tickets early and receive up to a 50% discount.
''At a busy time of the year, that's a pretty strong result nearly a week out from the start of the match,'' a spokeswoman said.
''Tests are traditionally walk-up events with 90% of tickets sold in the last 10 days and a 60% walk-up.''
