What Ails New Zealand Cricket?

by Shreyas Bhide

When one talks about the New Zealand Cricket team, the talks invariably shift to uncertainty and unpredictability. Along with Pakistan, New Zealand has been the most inconsistent and unpredictable teams in modern cricketing history.

vettori ftBDc 17022

New Zealand first made it self visible on the cricket ground in the early 1930's, when they played their first test against England and lost it by eight wickets. New Zealand managed to draw the next 3 rubbers but lost the test series 1-0. New Zealand was also one of the first countries to play an ODI in 1973; its first ODI was played against Pakistan which New Zealand won by a margin of 22 runs. Over the years, New Zealand has produced some very talented and at times even extra-ordinary players notably Richard Hadlee, Stephen Fleming, Chris Harris, Daniel Vettori, GlenTurner, Chris Cairns, D.Morrison, Nathan Astle, Shane Bond etc. But these individual talents never managed to take the Kiwi Cricket to another level. New Zealand has forever been termed unpredictable and chokers on big stage since their early limited overs cricketing days.

Sample this:

1.New Zealand lost to West Indies in the Prudential World Cup 1975 in the semi finals by 5 wickets.

2.In a close encounter in the 1979 World Cup semis, New Zealand lost to England by a mere 9 runs.

3.In a world cup (1992) campaign that the Kiwis were widely tipped to win, thanks to their fantastic on field exploits under Richard Hadlee, they once again managed to goof up on the big stage. NZ's brave run came to an end as Pakistan successfully chased 262, with a relatively unknown Inzamam-ul-Haq thrashing 60 off 37 balls.

4.At Old Trafford in the 1999 World Cup, Pakistan's Saeed Anwar (113*) and Wajahatullah Wasti (84) made light of overhauling New Zealand's 241 for 7 in a nine-wicket win.

5.Once again in the 2007 World Cup in the Carribean, New Zealand let go a golden opportunity off their hands. Sri Lanka beat New Zealand by 81 runs thanks to Mahela Jayawardene's 115 not out.

These results apart, there have been numerous instances that have proved the New Zealand team's credentials as big match chokers. Qualifying round exits, losses in the Quarter and semi-finals of many a big series such as The World Series, the inaugural T20 world cup, and couple of editions of the Champions Trophy etc. are ample evidences of the above fact. So what is it that ails the New Zealand team? For starters, it's the frequency of matches that they play. Apart from the minnows in World cricket, Bangladesh and New Zealand are the only two test teams to play around 15-20 ODI matches and an average of 8 tests every year. Secondly, New Zealand cricket has always been about talented but ordinary individual show stoppers – Martin Crowe, Nathan Astle, Brendon McCullum, Shane Bond, Jacob Oram etc are all talented cricketing individuals, but not to the extent that they can match upto the likes of Tendulkar, Lara, Gilchrist or Muralitharan. Legends have been few and far in between viz. Hadlee, Fleming or Cairns, while Vettori is on his way to become one.

Probably even the New Zealand Cricket Board has realized this and has hence introduced a new system for measuring player performance, with a Most Valuable Player (MVP) initiative similar to the one used in England. "Based on the successful MVP programme launched in England by the PCA in 2007, the system has been developed by players, for the players and is truly reflective of their view of the game - it is the players' statistic," Heath Mills, executive manager for the NZCPA(New Zealand Cricket Players' Association) was quoted as saying.

It remains to be seen, if this move by the Kiwi Cricket Administration can boost the fortunes of the team.