A lab rat will scoot through a maze with more determination and vigour if the reward waiting at the end is unpredictable and intermittent.
I often reflect on that when thinking about my own relationship with cricket.
After spending 20 summers covering the great game for the Otago Daily Times, I still have no idea what to expect each time.
Cricket is notoriously fickle, and that is mightily attractive — addictive, even.
It is a demanding sport to report on, though.
Take Ross Taylor’s undefeated knock of 181 at the University Oval in 2018.
Taylor engineered an extraordinary comeback to help the Black Caps beat England by five wickets in a topsy-turvy game.
He limped into the press conference afterwards, having played a good portion of that innings on one leg. He was so broken he had to get a ride across the field on the drinks cart.
But what I also remember about that day was my work laptop broke down and I had three "intros" — opening paragraphs — on the go because that match hung in the balance for so, so long.
But that is nothing compared with the pressure of facing South African great Dale Steyn in the final over of a World Cup semifinal in the "Greatest game ever played" in 2015.
That’s what the headline claimed in the ODT the next day. And I was there to witness the six from the penultimate ball that clinched New Zealand their first World Cup final appearance.
The noise at Eden Park that night was indescribable, even for someone who was being paid to describe exactly what it sounded like in the newspaper the next day.
One noise I can describe is the clunk the ball made when Grant Elliott lofted it towards the long-on boundary.
For a few horrible and hideously long seconds, I thought he clothed it.
So what did it sound like? Terror. Utter terror.
A few moments later, the supporter in me was scampering from the aisles in the nosebleeds back to the press box to masquerade as a reporter again.
Brendon McCullum’s role in that win got reduced to a footnote. But his audacious batting at the top and bold captaincy was instrumental.
My favourite McCullum memory is from seven years earlier, though.
It was also the only time I joined the Volts in the changing rooms. I caught up with a fully clothed McCullum between durries. He told me not to mention the cigarettes, but he confessed in his book many years later.
There have been many other wonderful moments.
Otago’s 15-game T20 winning-streak, Neil Wagner’s five wickets in one over and Hamish Rutherford’s astonishing international debut stick out.
Watching from the periphery as promising teenager Suzie Bates went on to forge an impressive international career and cement her place among our greatest was richly rewarding.
Cricket has a lot to offer but it also asks a lot.
You cannot pack a first-class match into an eight-hour shift.
That is not meant as a complaint. It is more of an acknowledgement that I am not the only one in the maze.
My lovely wife, Tracey, has had to face a lot more of the strike over the years while I leaned on my bat at the other end and outrageously claimed scribbling a few lines about the game I love was hard work.
There are so many others who have gone into bat with me. Your support, unlike the game, has been predictable and consistent and I’ve come to rely on it.
