How merry do Black Caps get?
Big servings of glazed ham and roast chicken, extra helpings of pavlova and trifle, plenty of chilled beers and crisp champagne. It doesn’t exactly read from the textbook of game-eve diets for a professional sportsperson. But then again, Christmas is a special case.
And for the Black Caps, they are no exception to the festive feast, even with a Boxing Day test against Sri Lanka looming large.
Despite a modern age of high performance environments and detailed nutrition plans, essentially the rule is ‘no rules’ when it comes to food and drink intake for the country’s elite cricketers on Christmas Day.
‘‘We try to keep things as normal as possible,’’ explains Black Caps manager Mike Sandle.
‘‘We don’t have any rules around what the players can eat and drink. We trust everyone to make good decisions and if they want to have a beer or a glass of bubbles with their families to celebrate Christmas, that’s fine.
‘‘We’re used to combining Christmas Day celebrations with preparing for an international match the next day – it’s the nature of the beast so we try and make the best of it and embrace it.’’
That’s not to expect a hungover, bloated lot of blokes rolling up to Hagley Oval to represent their country, mind you. The players know they will be quickly found out on the field if the over-indulging was taken too far.
HOW DO THEY SPEND THE BIG DAY?
The Christchurch locals are the lucky ones – they get to stay at home. Of the current squad that is Tom Latham, Henry Nicholls and Matt Henry, along with coach Gary Stead and batting coach Craig McMillan.
Those from out of town stay in family-friendly accommodation, which allows the ones with accompanying families to be up early and spending Christmas morning together opening presents.
‘‘We’re on the road a lot throughout the year – in excess of 250 days – and so the families are a big part of our environment and that’s especially true at Christmas,’’ says Sandle, who has been in this role since 2011.
‘‘It’s not unusual for us to be touring with a number of children. At the moment we’ve got four babies with us, and it just keeps things normal as well.’’
The squad then has training at Hagley from 10am to 1pm. It’s a lighter affair than usual, in line with the Christmas spirit. Last year the team’s logistics manager Riaan Muller had chocolate presents for all on arrival, while a Santa hat was donned for a few deliveries in the nets.
A few media interviews take place at the end, and then it’s off for festivities.
DIET, WHAT DIET?
Some players have nutrition plans and keep food diaries, but it’s a choice, not a blanket rule.
New Zealand Cricket general manager of high performance, Bryan Stronach, says instead that the ideology is around the general educating of players about basic nutritional guidelines, such as ‘food first over supplements’.
‘‘If we try and control it, they’re still not in our environment a large amount of the time, so the key is to just keep educating, and ‘everything in moderation’,’’ he says.
‘‘A philosophy of ours’ is going ‘they definitely will have takeaways at some stage, because everybody enjoys takeaways; they will have a beer at some stage, because lots of people enjoy a beer’.
‘‘But the key is in moderation, and at the right times, in the right way.’’
Stronach, who has been in his current role for five years but 11 all up as he was previously the team’s trainer, says eating right was indeed a key to on-field performance, allowing the body to recover sufficiently and have the energy to perform well, but also that hydration and sleep were other big factors.
With a strong unity amongst the group and so much time spent together, there is also plenty of self-regulation.
IT’S ALL ABOUT TRUST The trust placed on the group’s Christmas Day activity is merely an extension of the casual approach the team operate with towards preparations for any other fixture.
For several years now there have been no commands or curfews the players have to adhere to, rather the expectation they will make decent choices, explains Sandle.
‘‘Obviously an element in any good environment is having trust.
‘‘And the players appreciate it when they are trusted. It’s like anybody in the workplace – your bosses trust you to do a good job, trust you to make good decisions, you’re going to pay that back with being loyal to the team and buying into what the team is trying to achieve.
‘‘If someone made a decision that the team felt was not putting the team first, then that would be addressed. But we don’t want to sit there and say ‘you need to be home by 10 o’clock, or you’re only allowed to eat this, or drink that, and so forth. Because then you’re starting to treat them like they don’t know what they’re doing.’’
With too much regulation and ‘‘just treating them as robots’’ can cause stress to the athlete and in turn affect team performance,’’ Stronach notes. So the Christmas example fits snugly in that domain.
TEAM-FIRST MENTALITY It was in the Brendon McCullum-Mike Hesson era where Sandle was able to witness first-hand the shaping of the strong ‘team-first’ mindset, which has carried into the current-day Kane Williamson-Gary Stead reign.
There have been the wellpublicised issues with alcohol in the not-too-distant past, but the culture has been able to shift to a place where individuals are focused on what impact their actions will have on team-mates.
‘‘You only want people within the environment – that’s staff as well – that are prepared to buy into what the team is trying to achieve, both on and off the field,’’ Sandle says.
‘‘We’re very lucky with the current crop of players we have, we’ve got a really good trusting bunch who have bought into that. And, to be fair, once you get to that stage the players actually self-manage it.
‘‘What we’re doing now may not work in five years’ time, it may be a totally different team, you don’t really know. Things are always evolving, as different personalities come in and out.
‘‘You’ve got to realise you’re dealing with young people, and even older people, and people make mistakes. We’re certainly not going to put ourselves on a pedestal because you never know what’s around the corner.’’
Stronach sees the mentality also filtering down the ranks too, through to domestic and agegroup reps, and feels the increased education now has players far more aware of what effect their decisions may have on their performance, profile and team-mates.
Ironically, it was around the time of New Zealand’s last Boxing Day test, where McCullum whacked a stunning 195 off just 134 balls, paving the way for an eight-wicket victory against Sri Lanka in Christchurch in 2014, that the Black Caps were in the midst of that change in team dynamic – just post the Phillip Hughes tragedy in Australia and leading into the World Cup.
‘‘We wanted to be New Zealanders,’’ Sandle recalls of the tweak in both on-field and offfield styles.
‘‘We’re not like Australia, we’re not like England, so there’s no point trying to copy anybody else, we just wanted to be authentic to who we were.
‘‘We like to have fun in our environment. ‘‘I think some people are surprised when they come into our environment to find it so relaxed. But because you’re away for such a long period of time, you can’t maintain a level of intensity for a long period. So you do need to keep things as normal as you can.’’
And a good feed and a few drinks at Christmas helps to do just that.