What’s wrong with New Zealand

What's wrong with New Zealand

By Ryan Allan

Firstly, let me preface this with the fact that I am nobody. I have no connections, I don’t know anyone on the inside, in fact, other than the occasional tweet with Iain O’Brien, I have never spoken to an international cricketer in my life. I am an avid fan and ‘competitive’ player. All the information I have is either opinion of my own sprinkled with stories from either the few friends of mine who have played age group reps, or what I have interpreted – rightly or wrongly – from the autobiographies of past and current players.

We’ve all heard dozens of reasons, opinions, or explanations for why the Black Caps have been performing so poorly recently. Sure, we’ve never really been world beaters, but we’ve had our moments… The odd VB or NatWest Tri-series win, and there was the Champions League win in 2000, but I can’t ever recall the Black  Caps having the Number 1 spot for any length of time, if ever. Recently, however, it seems like we’ve been getting worse, the 14 or so losses in a row would support this though.

Some of the reasons I’ve heard are: They get paid too much, they don’t get paid enough, they have no loyalty, they’re soft in the head, they don’t have the experience, they spend too much time with Gilbert Enoka, they just aren’t good enough, they’re fat, unfit and not professional enough… In my opinion they are all part of the reason, but they don’t quite get there, I’ll try and offer my 2 cents, for what it’s worth…

When we think of great New Zealand players we think of Richard Hadlee, John Wright, Martin Crowe, Mark Greatbatch, Lance Cairns, Ian Smith, Ewen Chatfield, Bruce Edgar, Jeremy Coney, Hedley Howarth, John Bracewell… I could go on. More recently of course we have Nathan Astle, Stephen Fleming, Chris Cairns, Shane Bond… For some reason the names Jesse Ryder, Ross Taylor, Brendon McCullum, Daniel Vettori, Martin Guptil, James Franklin, Tim Southee, Kyle Mills don’t quite make the grade. Sure, it’s partly because they’re still playing, but I’d also suggest the win/loss record won’t quote stack up either. You might be surprised to know the former group of players has played 1336 ODIs, the latter, 911. Sure that’s 425 fewer, but that still a hell of a lot of games. I’ll leave Scott Styris out at the moment, hopefully it become clear why later.

I don’t have all the stats, but I would suggest the numbers will confirm that the old guys would outplay the young lads. What I think it comes down to experience. Now 911 ODIs is a lot of games, but what I haven’t shown, or even know, the number of ‘other’ games these guys have played. Fleming has played for, Middlesex, Nottinghamshire & Yorkshire at various stages for about 10 years. Cairns played at Nottinghamshire for 15 years. Astle has clocked up similar numbers with McMillan, Roger Twose, Bond and Mark Richardson all notching up a couple of years each.

Of the current players, only Vettori & Franklin have played any county cricket, bar a few T20 matches for Taylor and McCullum. To me this is huge. Granted, as already mentioned, these guys are still in the middle of their careers, but to have notched up so many ODIs without playing any county cricket was previously unheard of. Sure you might say, well the current Australian team do not play county cricket either, nor do the Indians or South Africans, and you’d be right. They do, however, have the player base to have their own, reasonably strong domestic competitions, the HRV Cup or whatever it’s called now just doesn’t compete.

So the question has to be asked, why have we stopped playing county cricket? The simple answer is, the English made fewer positions available for international players, more competition for spots meant less places for New Zealanders. The more complex answer is our players no longer need to, financially that is. Back in the day, as I understand it, to make a living playing cricket, in the off season domestic players would go out and ply their trade, living in dodgy English flats, getting paid to play county cricket. This meant that not only did they not have to get a real job, but they played cricket all year round. Nowadays the New Zealand domestic players get 40-70k a year, just for playing domestic cricket, now that’s not a bad pay packet for a 4-5 month job. Sure, there’s off-season training and net sessions, but in reality you only have to play for half the year.

To me, and no doubt may others, there is no substitute for real game time and sadly, now that players don’t have that financial necessity to play overseas, and therefore all year round, they don’t and for that I believe they are lesser players for it. Hundred overs in the nets is no match real game time at the crease.

Compare Cairns’ 215 ODIs and 424 List A matches, to McCullum’s 190 ODIs and 234 List A. That’s huge difference in time in the middle, dealing with game pressures and experience at the crease. I believe this is no more evident than in New Zealand’s current batting line-up, players making rash shots, losing their heads and not batting to a plan, all skills gained by spending more time in the middle. To support my theory, I give you Scott Styris. In the current team, Styris is the only player I would call a go-to player. As long as he is at the crease, New Zealand have a chance. Styris has played only 186 ODIs, but 333 list A games, including games for Durham, Essex and Middlesex. That’s 100 more list A games than McCullum with the same number of ODIs.

So how do we fix it? Honestly, I don’t know.

I’m not a fan of the current NZC setup. As I mentioned in the preface, I’m nobody, I don’t have any inside contacts, but from what I’ve read though various biographies, it seems evident to me that NZC is a full of politics, a lot of chest thumping and not much foresight.

If it was up to me, I get the top 30 players from the domestic competition and send two teams overseas during winter, to Ireland and Canada if we have to. Get them playing games against quality opposition, more time in the middle. They may already do a bit of this, but in my opinion, not nearly enough and not nearly for long enough. Put responsibility on the players to improve their games, improve their fitness and improve their mental skills. Give them the tools but make them responsible for the outcomes. If they want to be professionals make them train and play like professionals.

I don’t see accounts taking half the year off expecting to be paid for the full 12 months, it should be no different for cricketers.

(Ryan Allan is an avid sports fan and two time former cricket world record holder. A long suffering Black Caps fan originally from the sporting Mecca that is Palmerston North, he now hails from Auckland, New Zealand  In addition to the Black Caps he also support the Hurricanes and Manawatu rugby teams and the New Zealand Warriors league team. His Twitter handle is @ryansallan)