John Bracewell's record as coach

John Bracewell was appointed New Zealand coach in September 2003. Since then he has coached the side in eleven test series as follows:

Tour - Wins - Losses
In India - 0 - 0
vs Pakistan - 0 - 1
vs South Africa - 1 - 1
In England - 0 - 3
In Bangladesh - 2 - 0
In Australia - 0 - 2
vs Australia - 0 - 2
vs Sri Lanka - 1 - 0
In Zimbabwe - 2 - 0
vs West Indies - 2 - 0
In South Africa - 0 - 2

A record of eight wins and eleven losses doesn't sound too bad until you start to look at who the opponents were. Six of our wins came against very weak sides from Bangladesh, Zimbabwe and the West Indies and only two came against teams of even middling ability - Sri Lanka and South Africa.

Prior to Bracewell's tenure we had such triumphs as the drawn series in Australia of 2001/2, a home victory over India in 2002/3 and a series win in England in 1999. We even dared - for a short period of time - to call our team the second best in the world.

According to the latest rankings we are now ranked sixth. Only Sri Lanka, West Indies, Zimbabwe and Bangladesh sit below us.

To be honest, I felt we should have won the recent series in South Africa. And I have no doubt that a side which included cast-offs like Ian Butler, Lou Vincent, Matthew Sinclair, Craig Spearman and Mark Richardson probably would have won.

New Zealand is too small a nation to exclude players of ability from its test side. And the main cause of players being excluded seems to be that man John Bracewell.