Dylan Cleaver has been obsessed with the summer sport since his earliest days on this planet. The first Black Caps test he covered as a journalist was Stephen Fleming's first as skipper, a four-wicket loss to England at the old Lancaster Park. Long before then, Cleaver had sat on the terraces of his hometown Pukekura Park and dreamt of a cricket career himself, but a lack of talent stymied that. Instead, he has spent the better part of three decades covering the sport for mastheads like the New Zealand Herald, Herald on Sunday, Sunday Star-Times and Sunday News, alongside contributing to overseas publications like The Cricket Monthly and The Nightwatchman. Cleaver has won close to 40 national journalism awards, including Best Investigation at the Canon Media Awards in 2015 for his work on match-fixing allegations involving former New Zealand cricketers. He has been named Sports Journalist of the Year on multiple occasions, including for his ground-breaking work linking the high rates of dementia in former rugby players with head injuries suffered in their playing days. He lives on the North Shore with his wife Michelle and two teenage children Liam and Libby.