Worst of both worlds

When John Bracewell handed in his papers as New Zealand coach, the nation breathed a sigh of relief. Amongst the welcome changes was that the new coach Andy Moles was not going to be part of the selection panel, so we were to be spared the kind of micro-management that Bracewell carried out with his freedom to drop and pick players. The issue of selection and influence on the team by the team leadership had been an issue before Bracewell’s appointment, with Richard Hadlee revealing that Stephen Fleming had too much influence on team selection when he was captain.

Having either coach or captain with a say in team selection is potentially a serious problem. But now, despite having experience those problems, New Zealand cricket has both its coach and captain as selectors.

Now, there are arguments in favour of these appointments. Namely, it allows the coach to choose the appropriate players for his game plan and it gives the captain the say over what tools he has to use on the field.

However, the arguments against are strong. The selection process, almost by necessity, is a political process. If the captain is part of that it is going to bring the politics onto the field and into the changing room. It has a great potential to upset the team I believe. At some stage Vettori is likely going to be sharing a changing room with someone who previously missed out on selection and possibly blames Vettori for that.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 26th, 2009 at 1:19 pm . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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