Tension forced Tiffen to opt out of series
New Zealand Cricket says problems in the White Ferns camp run wider than under-fire coach Haidee Tiffen.
On Thursday Tiffen announced she would take a leave of absence for the upcoming three-match Rose Bowl series against Australia.
Head of high performance Bryan Stronach told Stuff yesterday Tiffen was ‘‘world-class’’ and the decision was hers entirely following a New Zealand Cricket (NZC) World T20 campaign review.
Tiffen was unavailable for comment on her decision. However,
gStronach said the review found many kinks they would need to address, including the semiprofessional environment of the White Ferns.
‘‘Some of that can be quite confronting. There’s always tension around players and support staff, which I think is wider than just Haidee as well,’’ said Stronach on the review findings.
‘‘There wasn’t tension to a catastrophic level, but there is always tension and disagreements. And that can be confronting and that is why Haidee has made that decision.
‘‘We completely support it, we are not pulling away her contract or anything because she has decided not to go to Australia.’’
The Australian series was the last for the team this season and all support staff would be off-contract and have to reapply in July, as recommended by the independent reviewer. Stronach said Tiffen’s break was not a ‘‘mental break’’, but what she thought would be best for the White Ferns after seeing the review results herself. ‘‘We would like her to apply for the role going forward.’’ Stronach could not comment on what the complaints were or who they had come from. The review was so confidential that he was not privy to those details.
New Zealand Cricket is now vowing to invest more in to the women’s team, starting after the memorandum of understanding in July. This included culture, skills, mental health, having the team together more often and also a likely salary increase for the players.
‘‘A lot of our players are in fulltime roles and they are having to fit in trainings around work and so forth, which is good from a holistic development point of view. But when competing against professional teams, it is very hard.’’
‘‘When you are getting judged on results against professional players and you are not, they are legitimate arguments.’’
Stronach said the White Ferns environment is the hardest NZC team to coach or play in, because it was not resourced for the professional sport era yet.
‘‘It is an amazingly different environment to coach in . . . to compete with those top nations that are going crazy to be honest around investment.’’ New Zealand Cricket wasn’t satisfied with the results form the White Ferns at the T20 World Cup, he said.
The White Ferns failed to advance from pool play at last year’s World Twenty20 in the Caribbean amid reports about disharmony among senior players and questions over Tiffen’s leadership.
Alarm bells sounded pretournament when New Zealand’s star player Suzie Bates announced she was stepping aside as captain and handing over to Amy Satterthwaite.
Bates later acknowledged differences of opinion with Tiffen.
Tiffen, who played 117 ODIs and two test matches for the White Ferns, has been coach of the national women’s side since 2015.
She was re-appointed for two more years in 2017 despite overseeing a disappointing 50-over World Cup campaign, which also saw an independent review commissioned into the side’s performance. The series against Australia starts in Perth on February 22 and high performance coach Bob Carter is the interim coach.
‘‘There wasn’t tension to a catastrophic level, but there is always tension and disagreements.’’