Crucket

Latest excuse for not blogging: The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen.

There’s been a lot of excitement over Usain Bolt’s cricketing efforts. It seems that the world’s fastest man is not too bad with the bat or the ball. Could he be the saviour of West Indies cricket?

I’ll tell you what’s really needed – a time machine. Recent research suggests that our distant ancestors were much better than the best of us. Apparently, Australian Aborigines from 20,000 years ago could outrun Bolt.  And could no doubt bowl a vicious toe crusher off a long run up. Also, your average Neanderthal women was about as strong as a Homo Sapien bodybuilder with Tendulkar’s stature, so would have no trouble sending balls over the boundary. (They were probably better bloggers too and didn’t take two week vacations from posting.)

I found these pictures of what are clearly extremely ancient cricket balls:

Klerksdorp spheres they’re called, discovered in South Africa. They are 2 million years old and made of iron compound. Our antediluvian cricketing ancestors, or whatever alien race brought cricket to earth, were hard case!

The report in the Dom Post this morning that the players don’t want Andy Moles as coach anymore is a megaton hit to Moles’ position, I would say. This isn’t just mutterings of dissatisfaction, as we’re used to under other coaches. By all accounts, this is mutiny.

Apparently, Moles has not been doing his job. That is, he hasn’t been coaching the team, with Vettori taking on that responsibility. Who knows what’s really been going on behind the scenes, but given what we see of Moles, that doesn’t strike me as unlikely. However, I think it speaks most about Moles’ shortcomings as a coach that such a mutiny could be instigated. There was strong dissatisfaction with Bracewell by several players, but it would have been unthinkable for the team to band together and complain; he was just too much in control.

NZC has issued a press release ‘confirming’ Moles as coach, whatever that means.  Which is a fairly good indication that there is indeed a crisis. And there was precious little defence of Moles in the press release.

It’s not looking good for Moles. But what can he do? Surely the last thing he wants is to end his time in New Zealand the same way he did in Scotland?

I’ve managed to obtain a copy of a ‘vision document’ prepared by coach Gary Kirsten for the Indian team. It outlines the coach’s plans to improve the performance of the Indian players in their drive to be the best team in the world.

It’s four damn pages long. I don’t have time to read that sort of epic. So I put it through Wordle to get the gist of the document:

Context

Weren’t we supposed to have played a warm down match against a Sri Lanka XI last night? It’s listed on my schedule. TBC admittedly, but the criterion for us playing this game was failing to get into the final of the Compaq Cup, a criterion we fulfilled of course. In fact, the match was part of the deal that turned our 5-match ODI series against Sri Lanka into the stunted Compaq Cup along with India. The mysterious cancelling of this game means that our preparation for the Champions Trophy has been cut down by 3 whole games compared to our original schedule. And boy do we ever need some preparation.

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.

Kiwis will never get spin.

So the little contract scare with the IPL players is history. They all signed their contracts and everything is as it should be.

I still have a few things to say about this issue, however, that I didn’t get to when the issue was still warm.

Firstly, let me point you to a post on Paul Holden’s Sideline Slogger. Holden takes issue with Jonathon Millmow’s  article that I linked to in my previous post. To oversimplify the positions of these two commentators, Millmow  thinks the IPL players are abandoning loyalty for their country for money and Holden thinks that sport is just a job.

Millmow is wrong. All the players signed their NZ Cricket contracts. Not one of them chose money over country.

But Holden is wrong too. Cricket is not just a job. If it was, then none of them would have signed their NZC contracts.

But even if it was just a job, we don’t have to just accept that players choosing to play IPL rather than international cricket is likely to become the way of things. Anyone in New Zealand who is more interested in test cricket than domestic Indian 20-20 can feel rightly pissed that money is threatening to drag players away, and we have a right to express that opinion. And we don’t have to respect the players for putting so much stake in their IPL salaries, particularly after they pocketed their full salaries for playing in last year’s tournament.

Obviously the players have the right to go play the IPL if they want to. We can’t stop them. But we don’t have to like it and we shouldn’t be expected to send these guys off with a friendly slap on the back. You are allowed to be disappointed in people who change jobs or take job opportunities when you want them to stay in their old jobs.

There is far too much respect given to money in this age and too much respect given to people who have it. And I’m offended by the suggestions that we should respect these players because of the huge amounts of money they have turned down, as if the contact with these enormous sums of money makes them better people.

Let me make it clear however that I am not complaining about the players. I respect highly that they chose to sign their NZC contracts and to make playing for New Zealand their priority. I don’t respect particularly that they agonised over the money, but they signed their contracts so I can’t fault them.

Now compare the players and their choice to forego the IPL cash with Bill English and his choice to rort the MP allowances scheme. (It is an extremely tenuous comparison I know, but it was English and his greed that got me angry with people with loads of money who want loads more of it and got me writing this post today. Even if the comparison is tenuous, both cases are about money and choices, with the cricket players making the right choice and English making the wrong choice.) Now think of how much you disrespect Bill English for his choice, even though he hasn’t broken any rules. How would you really feel if the players had chosen the money?

“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.

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.

Here is the list of contract players for 2009-10:

• Brent Arnel
• Shane Bond
• Neil Broom
• Ian Butler
• Grant Elliott
• James Franklin
• Daniel Flynn
• Martin Guptill
• Gareth Hopkins
• Brendon McCullum
• Tim McIntosh
• Chris Martin
• Kyle Mills
• Iain O’Brien
• Jacob Oram
• Jeetan Patel
• Jesse Ryder
• Tim Southee
• Ross Taylor
• Daniel Vettori

.
The new names in the list are

• Brent Arnel
• Shane Bond
• Neil  Broom
• Ian Butler
• Grant Elliott
• Martin Guptill
• Time McIntosh

The big news is Shane Bond’s return. It is great that the hatchet has been buried. I would say it is highly likely Bond will be playing in Sri Lanka, sooner than I had expected. Ian Butler’s return is a real fairystory that is being overshadowed by Bond’s story. The only bolter on the list is Brent Arnel; as far as I can tell the only uncapped signing, though he has been picked for a Black Caps squad before. Arnel has been playing for Northern for about 4 years, I think, and has encouraging figures of 77 wickets at an average of 26 and SR of 57 – comparable to Southee’s figures. Guptill is an obvious signing. McIntosh acceptable. Elliot a bit depressing. And Broom, really one of NZ’s top 20 players?

The players that have lost contracts are

• Peter Fulton
• Mark Gillespie
• Jamie How
• James Marshall
• Michael Mason
• Aaron Redmond
• Scott Styris

Styris dropped. Wow. I’m not actually surprised that he was dropped. I’m just surprised that he has fallen so far so fast. And it’s not like he hasn’t been trying to keep his career alive. There should be no tears shed over the other drops. It is disappointing we didn’t get more out of Gillespie, but there just wasn’t a place for him in the team.

The list of players who missed out, apart from those contracted last year, is endless of course. But I’ll try to think of a few notable ommissions.

• Darryl Tuffey. Back in the frame but will have to fight to prove himself. We probably won’t see him considered for the Black Caps until after he’s played some domestic cricket.
• Nathan McCullum. Given that he is a first choice for the 20-20 team, it’s an oddity that he isn’t getting a contract.
• Peter McGlashan. Again a victim of being a 20-20 specialist when 20-20 is considered at all in setting contracts. However, he goes straight into the team if Brendon McCullum can’t play or can’t keep.