WELLINGTON, Dec 6: Turn right into Brian Lara, then left into Curtley Ambrose.

That route won’t appear on a New Zealand street map any time soon after a municipal council rejected plans to name streets in a new housing development after West Indian cricketers. It comes as the West Indies cricket team begin a two-Test New Zealand tour.

Developer Rodney Callender put forward the names among ideas for six streets in a 112-house development in Granada North, a suburb

on the outskirts of Wellington. Street names in the suburb already have Caribbean connotations and Callender suggested cricketing names fitted the general theme.

Wellington city councillors, including former New Zealand Test cricketer John Morrison, were doubtful. Morrison said the landlocked suburb was very different from the palm-fringed beaches and azure waters of the Caribbean.

—AP