My wardrobe is full of nicely pressed shirts. Crisp cuffs. Stiff collars. Not a wrinkle, crease or pucker in sight.
You have to be pretty desperate to turn to ironing as a distraction. But then appalling scenes were playing out on the screen on Saturday night.
England great Stuart Broad sliced through the New Zealand top order to set up a 267-run win in the first test at Bay Oval.
The last time my iron produced so much steam, the Black Caps boasted an attack of Mark Gillespie, Daryl Tuffey and Iain O’Brien. And a revolving door saw the likes of Aaron Redmond, Jamie How, Martin Guptill, Tim McIntosh, Matthew Bell, Michael Papps, Rob Nicol and others try to fill the void at the top of the order.
They were steamy times to be a Black Caps fan.
The first 26 years were not too good, either. England rolled New Zealand for just 26 at Eden Park in 1955.
That game briefly came to mind on Saturday. By then the living room was like a sauna, the domestic duties paused only to fire off angry text messages.
‘‘It has been 10 years, but has normal service resumed?’’ read one bitter comment.
A lot of questions, which had been percolating since the previous summer when the Black Caps dropped home tests to Bangladesh and South Africa, surfaced again.
Is Kane Williamson the same player since the elbow complaint?
Has Henry Nicholls’ charmed run at international level come to an end?
Is Tom Latham a flat-track bully who has padded his average by scoring runs against the minnows?
Why haven’t more teams taken on those pedestrian half-trackers on which Neil Wagner has built a career?
Why didn’t we send an SOS to Trent Boult when Matt Henry went on paternity leave and Kyle Jamieson was ruled out with a back complaint?
Just 20 months ago, the Black Caps reached nirvana when they beat India to claim the inaugural World Test Championship title, so why is this happening?
It has been a dramatic decline.
But there is light filtering into that pit of despair where Black Caps fans have so often sought refuge.
Williamson is still the greatest New Zealand player since Richard Hadlee. He needs a further 33 runs to usurp Taylor at the top of the run-scoring list.
He scored a double ton against Pakistan during a marathon stay at the crease in December, so there cannot be too much wrong with said elbow.
Nicholls is struggling for form. But he has been in that position before and has a reputation for scoring tough runs when his side is up against it — and they are up against an England team playing test cricket at another level.
Latham missed out twice in the opening test. England batted at such a rapid clip, it was able to bowl during two of the three evening sessions where batting was significantly more difficult.
The opener struggled but he will be more at home at the Basin Reserve, where he averages nearly 50.
Wagner had a torrid time at Bay Oval, particularly in the second innings when he conceded 110 runs in 13 overs.
He is among the most resilient competitors around, though. He took some tap, yes, but he also picked up six wickets in the match. And describing his usual mode of attack as 125kmh half-trackers does not do justice to the accuracy and consistency with which he has been able to bowl that delivery during a productive career.
Henry returns from leave for game two. That will help plug the gap Boult’s non-selection has left.
He is a much better player than his bowling average of 41.09 suggests.
But if the Black Caps prove to have nothing more up their sleeve, at least I’ll get the crease out of my sleeves.
