Well I remember a few years ago when we got that emergency in need ICC grant of a million bucks or whatever, it was mentioned that that allowed us to go ahead with a few A tours. If that made the difference then I assume money must be a pretty big factor for us. That was what, three to four years ago? It seemed to have a pretty good impact on results for the Blackcaps, as well.
So no idea what effect the new tv deal has had, but I get the feeling NZ Cricket in general struggles to make ends meet. Could be way off though!
The A tours coincided with an excellent 3 years for NZ. May be causation, but definitely some correlation.
The first year they selected a fairly awful squad for the Asian tour. Only Anderson, Henry, Sodhi made progress from that.
We were supposed to get 3 tours out of that icc money. I count only 2 that have happened.
Year 1: India and Sri Lanka. (That was an excellent itinerary)
Year 2: England for a List A tri series , with 2 token 3 days games v half strength English counties. (Money badly spent)
Maybe tour 3 also happened in year 2? A series of List A games in UAE v associates for those associates' CWC prep. (I thought this was a separate icc initiative for the associates' benefit)
We had incoming Sri Lanka A tour last year, maybe that counted? It got Henry Nicholls elevated.
(Looking it up in the archive, and in hindsight, it should have got Raval elevated)
The fact that Raval, Young have had so little A cricket, Bruce has had none shows where we are letting ourselves down.
They need to get to Dubai, play some A tests against whoever is willing. Good, cheapish (I assume) centrally located facilities.