In my last poll I asked you whether Craig McMillan was classy or clown-like and an overwhelming majority (12 to 6) told me that he should be wearing a red-nose with the mutton-chops. I suspect McMillan's performances in the Chappell-Hadlee series had a bit of an impact on my poll, that stupid pull-shot in the second match certainly didn't help.
My new poll stems from a comment reputedly made by New Zealand coach John Bracewell. Bracewell allegedly said he had to stick with his current squad because New Zealand's first-class competition was not capable of producing international quality cricketers. If true, this will clearly create huge problems for New Zealand in the near future. Do you agree with Bracewell? Or do you think that the competition which once produced Richard Hadlee must surely be capable of creating the new Kyle Mills?
Monday, 12 December 2005
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3 comments:
I spent a little time in NZ and trained with a club in Auckland. (I never ended up playing as it turned out...another story). I was surprised with how "shallow" the whole setup was. There only appeared to be one "level" across Auckland from which I assume, the first class competition was picked. (Had I been able to make it, I could've wound up playing Dion Nash in a practice match - I'm nowhere near that level - nowhere near! - but that was the nature of the setup).
I guess the population is a lot smaller in NZ, but there a literally thousand of clubs, and hundreds of associations here in Aus, with at least half a dozen graded levels to work your way through.
I didn't feel the general popularity of cricket was that huge in NZ either.
I think that is a really good comment. There was an article in yesterday's paper about a 14 year-old boy who was plucked from 2A level (which is the social rubbish level I used to play in and about three levels below senior club level) and immeadiately took 6-16 on his senior club debut. My thought on reading this article was not "want a talented kid he must be", but "that would never happen in Australia".
On the positive side, the kid was given a chance that he would otherwise not have got and clearly grasped it with both hands. On the negative side, it clearly doesn't take much hard work to get selected for a senior club side.
Nor does it seem to take much work to take 6 wickets for a senior club side.
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