Wright’s squads set off without buildup
If New Zealand Cricket coach John Wright gets his parting wish of an away series victory, he won’t be able to point to a thorough pre-tour buildup as the reason.
While the Black Caps’ Caribbean opposition prepared with tough home series against Australia then England, the world’s top-ranked side, Wright’s men prepared with next to nothing.
The quick bowling group – minus the injured Mark Gillespie – had a short camp in Brisbane while the rest of the ODI and Twenty20 squad, which leaves for Florida tomorrow, and the test squad, which joins them next month, have been largely left to do their own thing.
It’s not as if they haven’t been playing cricket, just not together.
But most of the squad haven’t been able to meet Wright and squeeze the last drops of knowledge out of him before he and New Zealand Cricket part company.
Martin Guptill and Kane Williamson have both been playing county cricket, Brendon McCullum, Ross Taylor, James Franklin, Daniel Vettori and Doug Bracewell were involved with the Indian Premier League, Neil Wagner has been playing in South Africa, Dean Brownlie in Perth and Kruger van Wyk in Scotland.
The reason NZC haven’t booked a camp together before this trip is twofold. With such a busy schedule planned for the next 10 months, player burnout is clearly a concern – as well it should be.
The New Zealand side’s calendar is daunting to say the least.
After this six-week Caribbean tour, they have a short turnaround before a tour of India, followed by the Twenty20 World Cup in Sri Lanka, a full tour of South Africa before returning home to host England.
The other reason is money. As Wright said this week; the funds are simply not there.
‘‘It would have been a little bit more satisfactory to get to Australia, but resources are tight,’’ he said.
It’s hardly ideal but, to his credit, instead of bemoaning the financial hardships of his soon-to-be ex-employers, Wright’s plan is just to plug on, do the best he can and focus on the positives.
‘‘We just have to get on with it,’’ he said.
‘‘The thing to bear in mind is there is a lot of cricket coming up for these guys. But they’ll go in [to this tour] fresh, they might be a bit rusty early on and you’ll have to expect that.’’
Wright called it a ‘‘modern day cricketing problem’’ but, in typical Wright fashion, one they would not be using as an excuse.
The side has five days together in Florida before back-to-back T20 internationals on July 1 and 2 (NZ time).
Wright felt he was leaving the Black Caps when the potential of the side was high.
However, that potential had to be turned into results and this tour was a good place to build on what he called a successful home summer, he said.
‘‘We’ll do what we did against Australia and South Africa. We’ll scrap,’’ he said.
‘‘If you look at our test ranking [eighth], it has to improve and with the quality of our youngsters, I think that will evolve over time. But sooner rather than later would be good.’’