Sports 🏏 Black Caps

[CWC]

I couldn't understand why Kane Williamson would relinquish the Test Captaincy and keep the white ball captaincy.

Williamson is the best captain for Tests and surprise surprise is now going to play Tests only for NZ.

Unless of course he doesn't want the test captaincy, but if that were the case you wouldn't keep the short form captaincy either.

NZC seems to be in a pretty messed up place. It really feels that all the while we have had the best part of 15 years of success, they have not been re-investing in the grass roots, eroding it more like.

Now the golden generation has come to an end (and make no mistake, it has ended, a while ago) there is bugger all coming through.

They just messed around with Sky to make deals with Spark to get that $ and now it's ending up on TVNZ with different broadcasters for domestic and overseas NZ games

When they gave the rights to Spark where the ratings were so bad that they could only brag about how many social media youngsters watched 20 second clips on FB, you know the game will die in this country the way they run it

I couldn't find Ross Taylor's last game (think it was exclusive on Spark) then you see the way Wagner got dumped, and Boult retiring from T20 world cup like this, and I'm a long time fan.

 

[JustLikeStartingOver]

Even if NZC were on top of their game, the environment is so difficult, it’s indias world when it comes to cricket we are just living it, and they don’t care enough about us to invite us into the party.

The national team is really the springboard into mindless T20 garbage, but that’s what pays, even if we unearth the next Shane bond he would disappear to play in those comps - and he’d be right too, fast bowling is terrible for you physically.

So then your largely left with toilers and grinders who love the game but don’t have that magic dust that makes cricket worth watching as a broadcast product

 

[Ever Hopeful]

I couldn't understand why Kane Williamson would relinquish the Test Captaincy and keep the white ball captaincy.

Williamson is the best captain for Tests and surprise surprise is now going to play Tests only for NZ.

Unless of course he doesn't want the test captaincy, but if that were the case you wouldn't keep the short form captaincy either.

NZC seems to be in a pretty messed up place. It really feels that all the while we have had the best part of 15 years of success, they have not been re-investing in the grass roots, eroding it more like.

Now the golden generation has come to an end (and make no mistake, it has ended, a while ago) there is bugger all coming through.

I was talking to a domestic selector and stalwart of NZ cricket last week. He had a different perspective (and not one I'd considered).

He believes that NZC has had a blinkered approach where they are seeking and only investing in youth, leaving others to drift out of the game. He correctly pointed out that young prodigies are once a generation if you are lucky, and the late twenties are when a player really starts to hit their straps.

Think of the years of Australian dominance when you'd break into the team at closer to 30 on the weight of consistency in domestic cricket where you have had trials and tribulations and worked your game out. He said we used to be much more patient, knowing that development is a long game.

The likes of Mitchell, Jamieson, Henry, Conway etc. all required a longer bake in the oven.

I'd hazard a guess that the glitzy player is favoured over the hardworking, more dour and less adaptive stalwart in today's world too. Players that ultimately have little substance.

 

[Ever Hopeful]

The Afghani openers are doing to Aussie the same as what they did to us on a difficult pitch.

Their batsman might stand up though.

 

[CWC]

I was talking to a domestic selector and stalwart of NZ cricket last week. He had a different perspective (and not one I'd considered).

He believes that NZC has had a blinkered approach where they are seeking and only investing in youth, leaving others to drift out of the game. He correctly pointed out that young prodigies are once a generation if you are lucky, and the late twenties are when a player really starts to hit their straps.

Think of the years of Australian dominance when you'd break into the team at closer to 30 on the weight of consistency in domestic cricket where you have had trials and tribulations and worked your game out. He said we used to be much more patient, knowing that development is a long game.

The likes of Mitchell, Jamieson, Henry, Conway etc. all required a longer bake in the oven.

I'd hazard a guess that the glitzy player is favoured over the hardworking, more dour and less adaptive stalwart in today's world too. Players that ultimately have little substance.

Unless they’ve changed tactics recently I thought they have been doing exactly that in the Stead era, before that our golden gen got their starts around 2010 (Kane, Boult, Souther, Anderson, even Guppy and Ross got early starts), then we had Henry who debuted at 21-22 hence he’s already played 3 world cups ODI, and Latham was a baby when he started test cricket and was in the 2015 world cup squad, Nicols was 23 when selected.

Then since 2016 the best the youngsters could do was the T20 (Seifert, Chapman) and everyone else were held back till they are past 24-25, Philips, Mitchell, DeGrohomme, Blundell, Fergey, Jamieson

Even Ravindra was lucky to start at the world cup due to injuries and Allen still is not a regular ODI starter. And our guys are now not durable for 2-3 world cups in peak condition

 

[Ever Hopeful]

Afghanistan have beaten Australia.

Both teams that NZ lost to, now in with a fair shot of being in the last 4.

The start of this comp was a real ambush for the Kiwis.