Axe set to fall

Richard Boock, who always seems to have the inside oil, says that New Zealand Cricket is about to cut the contracts of four long serving New Zealand players. It is no surprise that Chris Harris, Paul Wiseman and Daryl Tuffey are for the chop. Harris and Wiseman have both hit the late-30s and haven't done an awful lot to impress over the last year and Tuffey has yet to return from a long lay-off due to injury and public humiliation. The one player who might be a surprise casualty is Craig McMillan. McMillan is still only 29 and has a superb test record, but has been in shocking form for New Zealand in the past couple of seasons and failed to right the boat in last season's domestic competition (scoring only 260 runs at 32.50). McMillan has been given a lot of rope compared to colleagues like Mathew Sinclair and Matthew Horne, but it seems like he has finely ended his golden run.

Craig Cumming and Chris Cairns are the other players that Boock says are for the chop. Cairns for obvious reasons (retirement) and Cumming on form (only 173 runs at 21.62 in the State Championship).

Boock - as usual - leads with the bad news. And what we really should be focusing on is the good news. Because those six vacancies mean that there are six new players set to receive shiny new contracts. Boock speculates that Jeetan Patel, Michael Mason, Jamie How, Peter Fulton, Ross Taylor and Mathew Sinclair are the players to be rewarded. I would liked to have seen Andre Adams or Jesse Ryder make the list ahead of Michael Mason, but Boock tells us that Adams has told the selectors he would rather concentrate on playing for Essex and I guess Ryder has yet to really put his mark on the domestic game.