Crucket

“Country first, cash second” claim the headlines after the NZ IPL contractees deigned to sign their NZ Cricket contracts. The headlines naturally simplify the issue greatly, but mange to be extremely generous to the players.

The story is that the six Black Caps who are contracted to IPL franchises weren’t keen to sign their NZC contracts until they were assured that their international obligations weren’t going to get in the way of them turning out for their franchises. They were given until last Friday to sign, which they all did in the end.

Let’s name these six:

• Brendon McCullum
• Daniel Vettori
• Ross Taylor
• Jesse Ryder
• Kyle Mills
• Jacob Oram

That all six IPL players who were offered national contracts were holding out on signing, it was clearly a joint decision, probably organised by the Players’ Association.

Before Friday I was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. In contract disputes, “employees” generally have only one bargaining chip, withdrawing their services. So you shouldn’t take such threats too seriously. The threats have to be made of course, but they are more a bargaining position than a real likelihood. My feeling was that the delay in signing was just a message to NZC that they should give more concern to the players’  positions.

However, the statements coming from the players since signing have got me very concerned. Reports are that the players’ have got pretty much all they could have hoped for. The test series with Australia has been shortened by a whole test so that the tour will finish by 31 March, allowing the IPL players to be available for half the IPL tournament. That is a massive win for the players and a serious blow to the summer’s cricket. And yet the players continue to threaten to pull away from international cricket in favour of the IPL and talk about the decision to play the Aussie series to be a big decision. We’re also being told that Vettori had to convince some of the others to sign. Could they actually have seriously been considering not signing their NZC contracts? Was it more than just bluster?

And on top of that, we are being asked to applaud these players for their magnanimity, despite them having sabotaged the Aussie series and threatening to sabotage future tours. Well maybe some people will. The best I can say is that I am not as disappointed in them as I might have been.

And please everyone, stop talking about families. I have a family and it doesn’t cost hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.

Jonathan Millmow has had his say in today’s paper, expressing his disappointment and covering a few other issues.

Amongst all the talk of the sacrifices made by the IPL Black Caps and their loyalty and priorities, consider these aspects:

• We’re missing out on a test against Australia this summer. That’s not solely the fault of these players, but is certainly due to the IPL. That’s a big sacrifice NZ cricket fans are being forced to make – there is a huge difference between a 3-test series and a 2-test series. NZC may also be making a huge sacrifice here, assuming tests still make money. It also means less match fees, which is a sacrifice for the non-IPL-contracted test players.
• The IPL is for current players or retired players, not for uncommitted players. As I understand it, every player in the IPL needs a non-objection certificate from the player’s home board. So choosing money over country wouldn’t have been that straightforward anyway.

The schedule for the 2009 Champions Trophy (formerly known as the 2008 Champions Trophy) has been announced, so I have updated my schedule page.

They’ve changed the format for the tournament a bit from the 2006 event. In 2006, Sri Lanka, West Indies, Bangladesh and Zimbabwe competed in a qualifying round before joining the remaining 6 teams in the 2-group round robin stage. In 2009, the Bangladesh/Zimbabwe elimination round has been dropped. So we have 8 teams in two groups. Top 2 of each group go to semis, the winners of which play the final. To be honest, while it’s unfortunate for the 2 or 4 teams that miss out on being part of the tournament, 8 teams in a round robin is probably the sweet spot in terms of arranging an ODI cricket tournament.

While England was creating history of Lord’s, Bangladesh was creating a bit of history of its own in the West Indies. Bangladesh won the second test by 4 wickets, to go with the 95-run win in the first test, to take the series 2-0. That’s test wins 2 and 3 overall for Bangladesh and the first series win overseas. However, given that they were playing against a West Indies side severely weakened by a contracts dispute, there’ll be few outside Bangladesh celebrating this achievement. (In fact, I seem to recall that the Zimbabwean side beaten by Bangladesh back in 04/05 was similarly weakened.)

One bizarre consequence of this turn of events is that the Windies slip down in the official rankings, enough to push New Zealand up one place into 7th. That’s not the sort of promotion to feel proud of.

As I understand the ranking system, Bangladesh gained 3 points from their 2-0 series win. With their current rating of 0 points, this gives them 270 points, which when converted into points gives them 10. I imagine that is as many points has they have ever had. The West Indies gained 0 points, which actually gives them -15 points, or in terms of points: 78. A drop of 7 points.

What does a drought look like? Check out the huge gap in the England column of this list of victors in tests between England and Australia at Lord’s.

So the first ashes test in Cardiff has finished in a nail biter. The English 10 and 11 held out for about 12 overs at the end of day 5, preventing what would have been a huge win for Australia.

Australia obviously played fantastically, getting 4 centuries in their one innings and ending up 1 wicket and a few runs away from a big win. England might have played poorly (particularly both of Pietersen’s dismissals), but playing out the draw showed character, and they should be more competitive in the rest of the series.

Half a world away in Kingstown, Bangladesh are fighting hard for their second ever test win, playing against a West Indian team so severely weakened by a strike due to a contract dispute that they have 7 uncapped players in the team.

The gulf that seperates the quality of these two pieces of cricket is as wide and as deep as the ocean that physically seperates the games.

After all the work I put into my schedule, the powers that be have gone and changed things. *Sigh*

The Black Caps were orignally scheduled to play 5 ODIs against Sri Lanka. Then news came through that India was going to pop over and join in, and a bonus triangular series was announced, slipping in just before the Champions Trophy. I had suspected there would be difficulty getting this extra tournament fitted in the schedule before the Champions Trophy, but nothing was said, and though the Trophy hasn’t yet been scheduled I just assumed that a window had been spotted and that time would be found. However, the original tour to Sri Lanka was scheduled to run until 19 Sept., while the Champions Trophy, though still not scheduled, is slated to start on the 24th. It’s pretty tight fitting in the 4 games of the mini triangular.

So, not surprisingly, the ODI leg of the Sri Lanka tour has been dropped, with the little triangular to take its place. An extra warm up before the tests has been added and the 2 20-20s will still be played, but have been bought forward to immediately following the tests.

I’ll update my schedule.

It’s a bit of a disappointment really. We are swapping 5 ODIs for only 2 or 3, depending on whether we make the final of the triangular. The extra test warm up is very nice and it will be a bit more interesting having a game or2 against India thrown in. However, giving up a decent ODI series for a pissant triangular is disappointing. I’m not too impressed with whatever deal was done here.

I have a pretty unsophisticated library method. I just grab anything interesting I see on the “librarian’s choice” display. Three weeks ago I picked up Dada & Surrealism for Beginners, The Seven Basic Plots, Bombay Mix: Street Photographs and Why Don’t Spiders Stick to Their Webs?. I also saw Out of the Park: The Craig McMillan story and thought I’d give it a go. Craig McMillan is a bit of a mystery – wouldn’t you like to know why he was so unpredictable? What was with the form roller coaster? What ever happened to his Carnivore franchise?

The book is due back on Saturday and all I have managed to read is the first page of the introduction.

If you have been checking my schedule page, you’ll see that this month we were supposed to be playing Zimbabwe. That tour has been postponed for a year, so I’ve tentatively pencilled it in for July 2010.

I’m a big believer in cutting sporting ties with wayward countries, certainly when that country is subject to international sanctions. So I’m pleased that we aren’t currently touring Zimbabwe.

However, around about the time the postponement of the tour was decided, the major political parties of Zimbabwe negotiated a power-sharing agreement, the first weakening of the despotic grip that Robert Mugabe held over Zimbabwe. This caused me a slight amount of doubt about whether the sporting boycott was now justified – whether this green shoot of real democracy in Zimbabwe shouldn’t be nurtured. Of course, the power-sharing agreement isn’t of any importance alone; what is important is that it leads to freedom for Zimbabwe.

I wanted to know where Zimbabwe was now, five months after the postponement of the tour was announced. Has the power-sharing agreement helped Zimbabwe? Is the sporting boycott justified? It appears that in many, many important ways, things have not improved in Zimbabwe. While some things have improved with Morgan Tsvangirai as prime minister (the hyper-inflation is under control), Mugabe is still largely in control of the country and still running it like his personal fiefdom; he controls the army, the police (which continues to arrest Mugabe’s political opponents and human-rights campaigners on trumped-up charges), the courts, the intelligence service and the media (which he uses to attack Tsvangirai). Clearly the boycott is still relevant, and could well still be in a years time when the postponed tour is supposed to go ahead.

Just a couple of days after Leg Break got me all worried about whether the postponed “home” series against Pakistan, slated to be played partly in New Zealand, would actually go ahead, New Zealand Cricket has confirmed that the series will happen this year, with four ODIs and two 20-20s to be played in the UAE in October and the three tests to be played in New Zealand in December before Pakistan’s tour of Australia.

I’ve updated my schedule page to fit these in. It looks a pretty full schedule, with cricket being played in pretty much every month for the next 10 months.

This bifurcated tour counts as a home tour for Pakistan, so they get the proceeds from the tour. Which will probably be quite a disappointment for them when they get the gate takings.

With Pakistan due in Australia for Boxing Day, it is likely that the test leg will actually start in November. This will be the earliest start for a test tour in New Zealand. We quite regularly have tests played in mid-Dec., though I note that we didn’t even have tests as early as Dec. before 1995.

The Otago Daily Times is getting quite excited that Dunedin might get one of these tests against Pakistan. I don’t think we should be too amazed however, as it’s long been the practice of scheduling the first test, at the coldest part of the season, in the South Island for tours by Subcontinent teams. (I love the ODT for the way they cover Otago cricket in the same way other papers cover NZ cricket. I really miss the Evening Post, Wellington’s long demised local newspaper, who were equally parochial about Wellington.)

The squads for the tour of Sri Lanka have been announced.

First up is the test squad:

• Daniel Vettori (captain)
• Craig Cumming
• Grant Elliott
• Daniel Flynn
• Martin Guptill
• Chris Martin
• Brendon McCullum
• Tim McIntosh
• Iain O’Brien
• Jacob Oram
• Jeetan Patel
• Jesse Ryder
• Ross Taylor
• Daryl Tuffey
• Reece Young

I’ve marked three names in this list in red, the non-contracted players. I find it surprising that just a week after indicating their favourite players in the contracts list, the selectors change their minds and offer up a slightly different list. In this respect, Tuffey is an interesting choice, as he wins selection above the contracted players Kyle Mills, Tim Southee, James Franklin, Ian Butler and Brent Arnel. Reece Young also displaces the otherwise preferred back-up wicket keeper Gareth Hopkins, as well as Peter McGlashan (though McGlashan hasn’t yet figured in the test equation). In contrast, Craig Cumming only knocks one contracted batsman out, Neil Broom, who hasn’t been considered for test cricket anyway. Which poses the question as to whether the contracts list is weighted too much in favour of bowlers.

I don’t disagree with the selections too much however. I would have like to see Franklin in for Elliot. I would of course liked to have seen Shane Bond in the test squad, but it was definitely sensible to hold him back for this leg of the tour. I would also rate Tuffey above Mills and Southee, on current form. I don’t think I personally would have given Cumming a second look. However, I must admit to being pleased he has been given the chance to erase the memory of what must be one of the worst cameos earlier this year when he was called into the one-day squad to play one match, in which he scored 0 and dropped a catch, but also thereby missing the State Shield final, which his team Otago lost in his absence.

The ODI/20-20 squad brings in the following:

• Shane Bond
• Neil Broom
• Ian Butler
• Gareth Hopkins (ODIs only)/Peter McGlashan (Twenty20s only)
• Nathan McCullum
• Kyle Mills

With the following being dropped:

• Craig Cumming
• Daniel Flynn
• Chris Martin
• Tim McIntosh
• Iain O’Brien
• Daryl Tuffey
• Reece Young

So big differences between the test and limited over squads, with about half the squad changing.

One of the reasons such changes can be made is because NZ A is playing across the Palk Straight in Chennai, assuming it is confirmed. The NZ A squad includes most of the guys added for the limited over leg:

• Peter Fulton (captain)
• Brent Arnel
• Shane Bond
• Neil Broom
• Brendon Diamanti
• Gareth Hopkins
• Jamie How
• Peter McGlashan
• Nathan McCullum
• Kyle Mills
• Tarun Nethula
• Aaron Redmond
• Tim Southee
• BJ Watling
• Kane Williamson

In some ways this is actually a more interesting squad than the test squad. There are a couple of players there who I would like to stay in touch of the test squad, Peter Fulton and Jamie How, who I think are better than they have been. As well as the future of NZ cricket, Brent Arnel, Bradley-John Watling and Kane Williamson, or so we are to believe. And other exciting additions, Tarun Nethula and Shane Bond actually back playing for New Zealand.