He's totally blind in his right eye and has about three per cent vision in his left one. He's also a little bit deaf. But Tauranga's Darrell Peri can still play cricket.

Darrell is one of the first members of the Bay of Plenty Blind Cricket team.

Darrell Peri is one of the first members of the Bay of Plenty Blind Cricket team. Photo by Bruce Barnard.

The Bay's 11 blind cricketers, aged 18-55, will play their first big game against Manakau in the Summer Series competition at Blake Park today, Good Friday. Darrell's looking forward to it.

The irony is, 55-year-old Darrell doesn't consider himself a cricketer.

'I've been brought up all my life in softball. I've represented Taranaki and Bay of Plenty.”

He used to play super league netball, indoor cricket, touch rugby – and spend a lot of time at the gym. 'I was a gym junkie,” says Darrell.

This was right up until ‘the crash'. The crash that sent him into almost complete blindness.

On November 1, 2009, Darrell, then 49, was riding his motorbike near Lake Rotorua when he was hit by a van and dragged 20m down the road.

'She was pretty serious,” says Darrell, who suffered a head injury and wounds to his body. 'Five weeks in intensive care and three months in Waikato Hospital.”

His wife Sandy calls him a ‘miracle'. 'It was about four times we were told he wasn't going to make it.”

He is here though, and he has no broken bones. But he's completely blind in his right eye, has only a little bit of sensual and peripheral vision in his left eye.

'Things are rather blurry,” says Darrell. 'I'm classed as legally blind.” Darrell thought he'd never play sport again. Until an email from the Blind Foundation last February invited him to come and see what blind cricket is all about. 'Excuse the pun,” laughs Darrell.

BOP Blind Cricket president Steph Jobson says blind cricket is played just like sighted cricket, except with a plastic ball filled with ball bearings, metal wickets and under arm bowling.

'And it's a lot louder because we have to yell to each other and give directions to them.”

But Darrell's slightly deaf too.

'I've got hearing aids. I got them cranked up in a different type of zone so I can hear the ball coming down.”

It seems nothing will stop him playing sport.

'I love it,” says Darrell.

Anyone interested in joining the Bay of Plenty Blind Cricket team can email Steph Jobson at [email protected]