There is an ambitious plan to revitalise the sport, but the decision making has been excruciating, the timeline dubious and the fallout furious.
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The painful birthing of big changes in cricket
The Black Caps are warming up for one of the greatest home tours in a generation against India starting next week, while a civil war rages behind the scenes.
New Zealand Cricket has been called chaotic, weak, woke and dysfunctional in the furore over its choice of a homegrown domestic T20 competition over joining Australia’s Big Bash League.
The players, cricket board and grassroots cricket back the ambitious plan, but some of those opposed to it have been vitriolic in their condemnation of the cricketing body, the most public of them being Sir Richard Hadlee.
RNZ sports editor Dana Johannsen says New Zealand Cricket descended into “open conflict and institutional paralysis” after it was revealed about a year ago that a private consortium led by a number of high profile former and current cricket players had put forward a proposal for a new private franchise league.
“At the same time, New Zealand were undertaking their own feasibility studies around the current product and looking at various options for the domestic game. And there was a faction within New Zealand Cricket and on the board itself that was strongly agitating for New Zealand to get a licence in Australia’s big bash league,” she says.
It became a flashpoint for various factions in the game, underlined by the resignation of chief executive Scott Weenink and Players Association boss Heath Mills.
Johannsen describes a “radio silence” in the months since the body announced its preferred option of the NZ20 which frustrated many people close to the game. But it came to the boil again last week when Sir Richard sent a letter to the media, raising a series of concerns about the cricket board.
Sir Richard cited a lack of transparency by the board, pointing to a Deloitte report which favoured the Big Bash League over a domestic competition.
Adding to concerns is that the new NZ20 has been delayed a season to the summer of 2027/28.
“It’s all very well to have this grand idea on a whiteboard and it’s very easy to get people to commit to this concept on paper but when it actually comes to getting that investor backing and getting people to commit the cash, that becomes a lot harder,” says Johannsen.
NewstalkZB breakfast sports anchor Andrew Alderson says a privately funded, multi-franchise T20 competition will need overseas investment – “people in the billionaire range to be able to do it, and probably from overseas to be able to make that happen”.
“It’s quite an in-depth, complicated picture with a lot of agendas at play. But in the end, they’ve got to try and do something ambitious to try and keep the game alive,” he says.
He envisages the league would be mainly city-based but likely to include a resort location like Queenstown, that would showcase New Zealand and attract viewers from around the world, along the lines of the Tour de France cycling event.
Alderson says top cricketers have committed themselves to the new league.
“But I think the crux of it is if the price is right, that’s another problem that a privatized NZ20 is going to face …. they have to have the money available, big money, to be able to pay these players,” he says.
Top Kiwi cricketers are paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to play in overseas T20 leagues.
“You can’t blame these guys for doing that. The only thing I would say is that how much do those players owe back to New Zealand Cricket who created the system that enabled them to get good at the game and be able to go on and use those skills overseas? It’s really hard to put a figure on that.”
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Source: www.rnz.co.nz
