Ben on...contracted players announced; ins and outs

Karl will be livid, but Ryder has won an NZC contract while Bell and Sinclair have been dropped from the list. This is no surprise after they failed to get selected for the tour to England; everyone on the contract list is in the touring party except James Franklin, who would be touring if he wasn't injured. This needn't be the case, as you could imagine a situation where a player not actually picked to play, for bad form say, is given a contract recognising that they are considered long term prospects. I'm sure this was why Sinclair was contracted for so many years but rarely picked. In fact, I think it is remarkable that NZC considers players such as Aaron Redmond worthy of contracts even though they are completely untested at test level. Says volumes about our depth at the moment.

Anyway. There is much to say about each of the contracted players, but Sportsfreak shows that it is possible to say a lot with very few words.