Friday, 29 February 2008

Dungeons and a Dragon

Richard Boock, the biggest whinger in New Zealand cricket, has written an article for Wisden complaining about the bitching that goes on in New Zealand cricket. Utterly bemused by the hypocrisy of it all? Just wait until Boock starts talking about Dungeons and Sorcerers...

6 comments:

Golandaaz said...

Is there another explaination why NZ has such a poor record in Tests? and overseas?

Ben said...

A nasty article by the nastiest cricket reporter. I felt nearly sick reading it.

Ben said...

Which explanation Golandaaz? Our small player pool? The lack of money? The fact that we play less matches then other teams?

We're a small country playing a big sport. It is no surprise we're going to struggle.

And anyway, I think it is a little harsh to say that NZ has a poor record. Sure, we have a losing record overall, but in the last 10 years (for example) we have won more games than we have lost. All things considered, I think our record exceeds expectations. (And I think we are more often judged by expectation than by our record.)

Golandaaz said...

I am no follower of Rugby, but I know NZ has a world class, world beating rugby team.

Why does the smallness of NZ not count against your Rugby teams?

What prevents NZ Cricket from emulating the success of NZ Rugby.

For me, who has no knowledge about the workings of NZ cricket, the article was insightful.

I used to think highly of John Bracewell. I witnessed at Bombay how Bracewell and the great Sir Hadlee won a test match in Bombay in 1988. It was a good NZ team. They lost 2-1 but the games were great.

I am looking forward to India touring NZ next summer I believe. Hopefully the tests will last longer than the 2 2 day tests we played in 2002!

Golandaaz said...

Actually, I read the article first and knew one of the NZ bloggers would have a comment on it. But did not see a counter to the article. Just that fact that you did not like it.

Just wanted to get a different perspective

Ben said...

Golandaaz,

NZ's success in rugby is a bit of a mystery, but there are couple of points of difference between rugby and cricket. Firstly, in almost every country except New Zealand, rugby is a fringe sport, so New Zealand is actually a big fish in the rugby sea. Secondly, New Zealand supports 14 first-division provincial rugby teams, while we have only 6 first-class cricket teams. Cricket is big in NZ, it is the number 1 summer sport, but rugby is huge.

Richard's Boock's article was in fact pretty accurate. It was just the extreme, bitter negativity of it that I didn't like. I guess if I have a different perspective it is a glass half full/empty difference. I do disagree, however, with his thesis that there should be less in-fighting in New Zealand because our results aren't great. There is in-fighting and politics in every cricket team. I also don't accept his claim that we want to talk about the coach more than we want to talk about the team (even though he points out that there is in fact a lot to talk about), unless by "we" he means cricket journalists.

I'm really looking forward to the Indian tour next year as well.