Straight-talking Buck trying to steer a course for ailing Black Caps
IT’S TIME John Buchanan was given more influence within New Zealand Cricket. Rather than being marginalised and under-used as we’ve been hearing in recent months, 2013 needs to be the year in which he plays a major role within the organisation.
These days I’m a long distance observer of New Zealand cricket but a few years ago I spent plenty of time around Buchanan when he was Australian coach. I’m a fan of his methods: most particularly his ability to give an unflinching critique.
He is a straight up, honest man who has endured more than his fair share of abuse for the simple fact he was appointed coach of the world’s best team without having donned the Baggy Green cap.
His comments last week in this newspaper about the current plight of the Black Caps were typical Buchanan – forthright and honest.
‘‘This sort of situation [the Black Caps’ making 45 in the first test against South Africa] will recur if we don’t address four things – integrity, trust, honesty and accountability,’’ Buchanan told the Star-Times.
‘‘Until we can commit to that as a total organisation, that sort of result may occur again. If we can commit to those things as a total organisation, then I would be really confident . . . that that humiliation, of New Zealand Cricket and New Zealand, won’t be seen again.’’
At the moment, he says, ‘‘things like integrity, trust and accountability [don’t] reside consistently, or constantly, within our organisation’’.
One commentator, perhaps annoyed his outlet didn’t score an interview with Buchanan, described him as saying ‘‘fourfifths of nothing’’. That is a trite dismissal of what amounts to a trenchant criticism levelled against one of our biggest professional sports organisations.
History suggests that when Buchanan speaks his mind, results happen.
The one I remember most keenly came after Australia lost the unloseable test to India at Kolkata in 2001, India winning after being forced to follow on. In his postmortem, Buchanan left reporters stunned when he blasted Shane Warne for his lack of fitness.
Warne, in those days a podgy figure constantly accused of eating all the pies, took one for 152 in India’s second innings and was next to useless in the heat and humidity. Buchanan told the world what everyone knew but noone close to Warne had dared say: the world’s best legspinner was too tubby to play test cricket in this environment.
At the end of the series, Warne, almost in tears in the hotel bar, bailed up the tour reporters and whined: ‘‘Why did Buck say those things about me?’’
He was so stung by the honest assessment that he almost immediately started the transformation that turned him into the sleek figure we see today, talking of a test comeback at age 41.
Buchanan’s sting had the desired outcome, even if Warne couldn’t see it and spent the rest of his career sledging Buchanan.
Two years later, in 2003, Buchanan faced the wrath of his entire team when he dared to suggest a batting lineup led by Steve Waugh was ‘‘soulless’’ and ‘‘immature’’ after they lost, again to India, despite making 556 batting first. On a docile Adelaide Oval the second innings amounted to just 196, with Australia losing by four wickets, again from an unloseable position. Buchanan wrote to each player: ‘‘I am so disappointed with the soulless, un-Baggy Green, immature performance [at Adelaide]. I love each and every one of you but, like my own family, you thrill, you frustrate, you anger. I question, what progress have we made as a team, as individuals.’’
He also said the players were distracted by sponsorship deals and ‘‘what the media is saying about you’’.
Initially the players turned on the coach, leaking the letter to embarrass him, before Adam Gilchrist, another man of integrity, dared to stand up and say the coach was right and they had to have a look at themselves.
The outcome? Just a few months later Australia went back to India and won a four-test series to conquer what Waugh had dubbed the ‘‘Final Frontier’’, winning in India for the first time in 35 years.
Buchanan may say things people don’t want to hear – but no-one should doubt his intention to make a difference, nor his integrity and honesty.
New Zealand Cricket needs to listen to him and act.