It's been an eventful few days in Napier. The annual Art Deco festival was in town at the weekend, with its usual dose of self-conscious 1920s chic. Today it was the turn of day-night cricket, with its self-conscious 21st-century boozing. Art or sport, this otherwise quiet town knows how to celebrate (witness the increasing number of plastic bottles and beer cans that flew in the air with every circuit of the Mexican wave). After the Colditz-like claustrophobia of Wellington's Cake Tin, today felt like an away-day in the country, and the gaggle of convicts on the quaint old grass bank at the northern end of McLean Park heightened the escapism. The ground looked as if it expects calypso cricket. Hawkes Bay billows in the background and a ring of palm trees overlooks the bank, which was massed with painted faces, flags, and – on two occasions – umbrellas. And teenagers swarmed everywhere, especially when the loudspeaker reminded them about the bouncy castle. The youth clubs of Napier were redundant tonight.

This is wine-growing country and red and white were flowing as liberally as the good-natured banter. At Christchurch some of the audience participation was vicious ("Caddick, you f***ing traitor" – that sort of thing), but here it was more kindly, like the kind of gags your uncle might crack after a couple of glasses of the local Te Mata vintage. "They're on the end of your arms," screamed one wag after Chris Nevin fumbled a simple take.

Just as harmless was the hyperactive umpire Brent "Billy" Bowden, who must be a character because he has quote marks round his nickname. He is New Zealand's answer to Dickie Bird, except he frets less and sports a curly mullet instead of a flat cap. His signals are straight out of drama school. His leg-bye is a suggestive stroke of the thigh, his wide a ballerina about to take off, his six an insult to disco-dancing. When two men behind the sightscreen briefly held up play, Bowden marched over and brandished a red card. Forget Art Deco – this was more like Surrealism.

Almost as surreal was the innings of Nasser Hussain, who – symbolically – came out to bat with a black cloud hovering menacingly overhead. It had been drizzling for about five minutes before he emerged from the Harris Stand, but when he did, the rain suddenly got heavier, which seemed to sum up his tour. He took 17 balls to get off the mark, batted like a teenager in a museum – all fidgets and fiddles – and was eventually bowled round his legs by Chris Harris for a 48-ball 24. That included three fours, which meant he had hit 12 runs off the other 45 balls. Poor old Nasser hadn't quite picked up on the party atmosphere.

Lawrence Booth is assistant editor of Wisden.com. You can read his reports here throughout the tour.

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