Crucket

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

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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.

In the middle of the ODI series, where Indian were flaying the Black Caps, Stuff were exclaiming that Vettori was holding onto his no. 1 ranking. Not likely. By the time that article saw print Vettori had already dropped to 2nd, as the recently updated rankings now show. Vettori has now in fact dropped to 5th, after going wicketless in Auckland.

Kyle Mills managed to hold onto this spot at 3, thanks to his 1/27 in Auckland. Jacob Oram dwindled a bit, dropping from 14 before the series to 19 afterwards. Patel and Southee also slipped, while O’Brien, Ryder, Elliott and Butler don’t even make it into the top 100 (they are, respectively, 118, 137, 131 and 127).

Somehow I expected things to be worse for our bowlers.

Amongst the batsmen, Ryder reached a career high of 47, which is quite impressive considering he was ranked 77 before the series. Guptill was similarly successful; starting the tour at 72 and reaching 44 by the end.

Our highest ranked batsmen remains Taylor, who has slipped out of the top 20 over the series to sit at 23. McCullum is also in the 20s, at 27, where he started the series.  Styris drops into the 30s, despite not getting a bat in his one game, though that will include some degradation from missing the Chappell–Hadlee. Oram’s 8 runs in 3 innings pushes him into the 40s.

Elliott dipped slightly from 57 to 60, though that could have been as bad as 65 if it wasn’t for his furious cameo in Hamilton. Neil Broom just squeezes into the top 200. Kyle Mills didn’t improve his batting ranking much, though he finishes at 19 as an all-rounder. The biggest mover of all was Peter McGlashan,whose late innings heroics in Hamilton boosted his ranking from 329 to 235.