5 years and funding to improve your national side - what would you do?

[Blocky]

Say you're given five years and near endless resources (respective to your country and other sports in your country) to improve your cricket team and either solidify their place as a Top 3 side or get them into position as a Top 3 side, what do you do?

For me, New Zealand cricket - I campaign heavily for one or two New Zealand cricket teams to enter the Australian first class competition - perhaps a North Island and South Island team - and invest heavily in the partnership to make this possible. I point to the success of the Breakers, the Phoenix and the Warriors in Australian franchise sport to show the possibilities, especially with T20 competition and perhaps even allow the Aussies to have more say in how we vote on the ICC for the opportunity.

I establish a rule that NZ will play at least ten test matches per year, every year. Preferably 12 (4 full series of 3 test matches a piece) to go with the diet of one day and T20 cricket and ensure that this is part of the conditon when negotiating with other test sides, I'd be happy to book consistent return matches with sides like Pakistan (in Dubai), West Indies, Bangladesh and other sides who do not get to play as much test cricket as the big four (Ind, RSA, Aus, Eng).

I campaign heavily for top class NZ test talent to play in the first class competition in England and potentially South Africa to expose them to different conditions and keep them batting year round (bowlers, not so much)

I search the country for tall (6'3+) bowlers who have some natural element of pace and then put them through specialised training camps to increase it, those that make the next grade, keep training them.

I put a particular benchmark of first class statistics on any selection to the main team of NZ - i.e you must have scored at least 5 first class centuries, have an average in excess of 35 in the last 2 years and show similar form for NZ A or the joint team in the Aussie competition.

 

[morgieb]

Build clinics for spin bowling. Axe the selectors and get the best ones.

 

[HeathDavisSpeed]

Pay players not to play in the IPL. Increase the payments for first class cricket to a reasonable level to survive on so that players do not retire early due to lack of funds or being able to get considerably more money elsewhere (Stu Mills, Scott Rasmussen I think as examples)

Invest in club cricket pitches. The biggest clubs in New Zealand to have their own full time pitch curators. How you can expect to be a success at first class or international level having been brought up on some of the club decks in these parts beggars belief.

 

[Flem274*]

Might post what I just finished reading in Shane Bond's book if no one minds?

 

[Blocky]

Might post what I just finished reading in Shane Bond's book if no one minds?

Go for it - I've been meaning to grab a copy of that, A: Because he's (and Dale Steyn) are the two bowlers I try to base my action off and B: Cause he's the only truly worldclass performer NZ has had since Crowe.

 

[age_master]

Dropping Peter Siddle and Marcus North is free, i would invest in grass roots cricket and the Big Bash, giving the ACT and NT teams.

 

[outbreak]

For Australia I'd increase the players wages in domestic and international level, increase the publicity and try to generate some interest by maybe sending more players around to grassroots clubs/schools/family day type things.
I'd push for trialing day/night shield matches for a season. I'd also ensure our future tours are all at least 3 test series.

 

[Flem274*]

What Shane Bond has to say

Looking Back[/U] Chapter 15: A Better Way]

When you've been around cricket long enough in New Zealand you will keep hearing the same thing: we don't have the talent of most other countries, but we punch above our weight because we're steady and work hard.

If you ask me, you can almost turn that on it's head. I reckon we consistently produce really talented players, but we underachieve we do not have the same tough work ethic of other countries.

.....They've never been taught just how hard you have to work to become great until they find themselves playing amongst the greats. We have such a small playing pool our most talented teenagers get on a fast track to first class cricket without having to put in a lot of hard yards.....the best ones usually find themselves one step below international cricket with no concept of just how hard it really is.

.......

Talking to team mates at ICL, IPL and County Cricket, they tend to say similar things about NZ batsmen. There is a view they don't work hard enough on their games. Nobody talks about there being a lack of talent, but the feeling expressed to me by one county team-mate was if you hung in there and were patient against New Zealand, they would eventually give their wickets away.

......

The answer is not to try to get back to basics, to try to recapture what we once had, but to get our talented youngsters working a hell of a lot harder and to keep them up with the best in terms of coaching and innovation.

.....

Mark Richardson did not become a world class opener by luck. He practised the house down......One of my most vivid memories was watching Rigor standing under a tree screaming because he couldn't get a decent net session. He was incandescent, swearing his but off, the poor bugger.

....

I can't emphasise enough that it's the work you put in when you're younger that will hold you in good stead. I have talked earlier about my belief that most of my injuries can be attributed to the fact I was a lazy trainer in my teens and early twenties. More than that, I didn't know how to train properly. Core strength and aerobic training is too often overlooked at age-group and school level in favour of skills training.

.....

It was not so long ago when there would be a lot of complaining from players that they were not getting enough access to NZC coaches. That for me was a cop out that was symptomatic of having everything handed to them on a plate when they came through the age groups. Top players should have personal coaches they can access when they are not in camp with the national team.

....

We play too much two day, two innings cricket. It's poor cricket that teaches you poor habits. If one team starts well the other thinks "Oh well, they'll declare soon, so lets get the spinners on." If a team has not declared by tea on the first day, everyone is up in arms. Then the team batting second knows it will be batting for not much more than a session before handing back to the other side for them to set up a fourth innings chase. It's a joke and awful to play.

Spinners are brought on to encourage the slog, so you never get batsmen who learn to play spin properly....It's all about one foot down the wicket and slog to cow corner. That results in batsmen coming into FC cricket who have never learned to play spin.

I'm running out of steam, but to finish up Bond thinks two day cricket should be one innings each to encourage proper batting and bowling, schoolboys should be elevated to mens cricket if they are good enough instead of thrashing other kids their age. Lastly we need to stop random selection and rushing young guys in after one or two good domestic performances. We pay too many FC players too little, and should cut the contracts down a bit and pay those guys more.

 

[silentstriker]

For India:

1. Pay county cricket a lot of money and send every promising young fast bowler to county cricket for five years.
2. ??
3. Profit

 

[Bahnz]

What Shane Bond has to say



I'm running out of steam, but to finish up Bond thinks two day cricket should be one innings each to encourage proper batting and bowling, schoolboys should be elevated to mens cricket if they are good enough instead of thrashing other kids their age. Lastly we need to stop random selection and rushing young guys in after one or two good domestic performances. We pay too many FC players too little, and should cut the contracts down a bit and pay those guys more.

God I'm glad Bond's in charge of our largest reservoir of young quicks. I remember reading in the paper the other day that he thought it was still possible to get Milne bowling a couple of yards even quicker with the right training.

 

[Blocky]

I stand by my assertions that bowling faster is no different to other power based exercises like sprinting, power lifting, javelin throwing, etc.

A solid steady plan of the right nutrition, a combination of hill sprints and cross country endurance running, kettlebells/other pylometric exercises and bowling overs with differently weighted balls will increase your pace in my view. A bit of biomechanics should be taken into consideration but not too much tinkering, basically you want a bowler to get high in their action, load up well, have a good delay before exploding over the front leg - something all bowlers can work on regardless of delivery style.

I'm of the belief that this targeted style of training combined with peaks and troughs for performance (i.e peak for a test series, trough afterwards) similar to boxers/mixed martial artists will see bowlers improve their pace.

Once I get rid of my current commitments with Uni and full time contract work, I intend to create a similar training program with a guy I know who competed in the recent UFC competition in Australia and see what I can muster. I believe at (almost) 30 that I can go from being a 125kph (estimate) bowler to a 135kph bowler in a space of 3 months. If that's the case, then an 18 yr old bowler should be able to go from 125kph to 145kph in the space of 3 years.

 

[vic_orthdox]

• Restore the 2nd XI competition to its purest form.
• Have an U23 competition below that, and play its games at the same time as the 2nd XI competiton, in the state where the other game is not; i.e. Vic vs Tas, play the 2nd XI match in Tasmania, U23 match in Victoria.

 

[Athlai]

Develop cloning technology - more Jeets.

 

[Xuhaib]

-Make the selection process more clean and transparent all all levels no more uncles and fathers pushing for their kids selection over the deserving ones.

-Improve pay levels for domestic cricketers.

-Organize regular talents hunts, a lot of highly competitive but unorganized cricket is played in Pakistan there is always a chance you will find a hidden gem somewhere.

-Improve batting coaching at the junior level currently too many batsman in Pakistan rely on hand eye coordination then proper technique.

-Encourage fast bowlers too bowl as quick as possible this has always been Pakistan's USP.

 

[NZTailender]

Develop cloning technology - more Jeets.

Haha, love ya Athlai. This made me lol (in a good way of course )

 

[TT Boy]

Go poaching.

 

[Zinzan]

Haha, I've actually thought about this before. If I won one of those ridiculous US lotteries that pay out 100 million or something, I'd definitely campaign to attempt to get 2 NZ teams (North & South Island) into the Sheffield Shield.

I'd promote a mass cricket awareness campaign for kids around the country with talent scouts taking speed guns around the place searching for natural raw talent & placing them into training camps. All this for the hope of one-day seeing a competitive NZ test team

 

[NZTailender]

I'd invest all the money in getting Daniel Vettori to be able to spin a ball or to make an Indian spinner look like Vettori so then thierry_henry can stfu already.

 

[Debris]

For me, New Zealand cricket - I campaign heavily for one or two New Zealand cricket teams to enter the Australian first class competition - perhaps a North Island and South Island team - and invest heavily in the partnership to make this possible. I point to the success of the Breakers, the Phoenix and the Warriors in Australian franchise sport to show the possibilities, especially with T20 competition and perhaps even allow the Aussies to have more say in how we vote on the ICC for the opportunity.

Just campaign for NZ to become the 7th and 8th states of Australia. It is what all New Zealanders secretly want anyway.

 

[Flem274*]

Just campaign for NZ to become the 7th and 8th states of Australia. It is what all New Zealanders secretly want anyway.

Only way Australia will get a half decent spinner or a solid middle order.