A Statistician's Look at New Zealand Cricket

I’m really a statistics writer. I’m not the first call for any pieces about management styles, off the field behaviour and so on. When I write about cricket I generally write about what happens on the park, and particularly about the results, and what can be found from analysis. However the current situation in New Zealand Cricket is one that is fascinating to me. The current “crisis” seems to be one that has been misunderstood, misreported, over-estimated and entirely avoidable. So I thought I’d take a statistical enquiry type approach to the current situation, and see what came of it.

The statistical enquiry cycle has 5 parts: Problem, Plan, Data, Analysis and Conclusion.

Problem: Why is there an environment in NZC where a breakdown between captain and coach can have catastrophic consequences and be played out in the public domain as appallingly as this one has.

Plan: Look back over the last 6 years of New Zealand Cricket’s history and see if there is a pattern, and anything that might be the reason:

Data: In a statistical enquiry this is where I gather the numbers. Obviously that’s not so relevant in this situation. So instead I went through just over 4000 articles in three different news archives that related to New Zealand Cricket. Here is a time-line of some of the significant events in New Zealand Cricket over the last 6 years. I’ve broken it up into Governance, Management, Leadership and Players; but some of the issues related to more than one category, so they could have fit across more than one. In these situations I picked what I felt was the most appropriate.

Date	Governance	Management	Leadership	Players
Jan-2006				Cairns retires
June-2006		Snedden announces 5 year test plan. Incuded 2 tests in 18 months.
July-2006			Andy Moles appointed as ND coach
Sept-2006	Don Neely replaces John Reid as president of NZC
Dec-2006		Snedden steps down	Dayle Hadlee appointed bowling coach
Jan-2007				Astle retires
Apr-2007				Fleming retires as ODI captain
June-2007		Justin Vaughan appointed new CEO. Forms committee to look at Bracewell’s position as coach. Includes Ric Charlesworth	Wright turns down Australian academy, expresses interest in working with NZ cricket.
July-2007			Bracewell re-appointed for 2 more years. Mark O’Neill new bating coach. Wright to have a (largely unspecified) role. Bracewell loses veto over selectors
Aug-2007	Heath Mills expresses concern about the newly mooted ICL. Asks NZC to talk with ICC about it.		Nash, Turner, Hadlee and Bracewell all re-appointed as selectors. Haslee and Nash given 1 year contracts, Turner and Bracewell 2 year contracts	Bracewell drops Fleming from t20’s. appoints Vettori captain
Sept-2007				Vettori given test captaincy. Fleming says he will stay on.
				Cairns, Harris, Astle and H Marshall all sign for ICL
Oct-2007			Ric Charlesworth quits as high performance manager	Craig McMillan retires
				B McCullum made vice captain
Nov-2007			Wright appointed high performance manager	Andre Adams makes himself unavailable for ODIs
Dec-2007		Richard Hadlee initially left off guest list for Chappell-Hadlee fixture.
Jan-2008				Bond signs with ICL
Feb-2008		Vaughan allows Auckland to play James Anderson, despite opposition from other asociations.		Fleming retires
				Ryder incident in bar
				Lou Vincent & Adam Parore join ICL
May-2008			Bracewell announces he will quit April 2009	Andre Adams becomes a Kolpak player
June-2008		Major changes in the organisation at NZC. 11 positions removed and 20 created. John Wright and Lindsay Crocker’s jobs both disestablished
July-2008			Dermot Reeve appointed coach of CD
Aug-2008		A number of staff leave NZC – Alec Astle, Dayle Hadlee, Dayle Shackel, Warren Frost, Brian Aldridge	Bob Carter appointed Canterbury coach
Sept-2008	Alan Isaac replaces Sir John Anderson as chairman of NZC board after Anderson retires.
Nov-2008		Geoff Allott appointed general manager of cricket.	Andy Moles appointed coach
		NZC apologises to West Indies for “it’s all white here” slogan
Dec-2008			Mark Greatbatch appointed as advisor to national selection panel
Jan-2009			Heath Mills criticizes selectors for not communicating with players when they are dropped.
Feb-2009			Dave Currie appointed manager
			Mark O’Donnell appointed assistant coach
Apr-2009			Moles asks to become a selector.
June-2009		State Insurance pull out as sponsor		Bond becomes available after ending ties with ICL
Aug-2009			Moles and Vettori added to selection panel, replacing Nash
Oct-2009		First Class competition moves to home and away format.	22 – reports players unhappy with Moles	McCullum loses vice captaincy
			23- Vettori gives some support to Moles
			24- Moles quits.
Nov-2009		Name of first class comp returns to Plunket Shield	John Wright to assist Vettori with national team
Jan-2010			Greatbatch appointed coach	Taylor named “stand-by captain”
Feb-2010		NZC announce partnership with USACA. Schedule matches in Florida	Martin Crowe appointed “batting advisor”
Mar-2010	NZC agrees to nominate John Howard, rather than original pick, Sir John Anderson as new ICC president.	NZ pull out of Zimbabwe series
May-2010			Roger Mortimer joins as performance director.
June-2010	John Howard rejected as ICC president			McCullum gives up keeping in tests.
Aug-2010	Alan Isaac appointed as ICC vice-president. Chris Moller takes over as NZC chairman		Shane Bond assistant coach at CD
			Trent Woodhill appointed as assistant coach
Oct-2010	Robbie Hart appointed to board
	Board calls for sweeping review post Bangladesh clean-sweep
Nov-2010		Geoff Allott resigns.	Duncan Fletcher comes in temporarily as consultant
Dec-2010	Bond, Martin Crowe and Gerard Gillespie bought into cricket committee.	Another deal with USACA	John Wright replaces Mark Greatbatch as coach. Vettori loses selector role.
Jan-2011			Alan Donald joins as bowling coach
Mar-2011				Vettori retires from T20i
Apr-2011	Crowe quits cricket comittee		Buchanan appointed director of cricket.
June-2011			Donald quits as bowling coach	Players consulted on the leadership qualities of Taylor and McCullum
			National selection managers role introduced, given to Greatbatch temporarily	Taylor appointed as captain, after rigorous process
			Trent Woodhill reappointed	Vettori quits ODIs
July-2011			Hesson appointed Kenyan coach
			Damian Wright appointed bowling coach
			Mike Sandle appointed manager
Sept-2011		Vaughan steps down as CEO	Kim Littlejohn appointed national selection manager
Dec-2011		David White appointed CEO
Mar-2012				Ryder & Bracewell dropped for breaking protocol
				Ryder takes indefinite break from cricket
Apr-2012		NZC signs 8 year media deal		ICC rule Wagner eligible for NZ
May-2012		Therese Walsh comes onboard to run NZC’s part of the 2015 World Cup	John Wright turns down a new contract with NZC
July-2012			Mike Hesson named as new coach	Williamson named interim captain while Taylor injured and McCullum rested
				Ryder makes himself eligible for Wellington
Aug-2012			Bob Carter appointed as assistant coach
			Damian Wright steps down as bowling coach
Sept-2012	Review of the board completed. 39 recommendations were made, and published.	Friday night TV deal announced.
Nov-2012	Stephen Boock named NZC president, Greg Barclay appointed as director		Turner and Crowe appointed talent scouts	Hesson approaches Taylor with Sandle and Carter, tells him that he is going to recommend a leadership change to the board after the tour.
Dec-2012	Chris Moller announces a special general meeting to look at a new constitution for New Zealand cricket.			McCullum appointed captain. Taylor rejects offer of split captaincy, steps down from South Africa tour.

Analysis: This is where I normally do some calculations, arrange the data into a nice table, and perhaps draw a graph. None of those things work here, so instead I’ve looked at some of the trends in the stories.

The one constant in New Zealand cricket over the past 6 years has been change. During that time the team has had 5 coaches, at least 11 selectors and at least 16 assistant or specialist coaches. There has been a litany of job titles for people too. General manager of cricket, chairman of selectors, convenor of selectors, national selection manager, high performance manager, performance director, director of cricket selection advisor, batting advisor etc. There have also been 6 captains for the international team (although Kane Williamson was only as an injury replacement and Jamie How was only for a tour match)

There have been a number of quite significant changes in the power balance between the captain and the coach. First there was a confrontation between Bracewell and Fleming. Then Moles and Vettori. Then Hesson and Taylor. The role of the captain has changed a number of times. Vettori was a selector, and for a while was actually the coach as well (although that was only for about 2 weeks while the team was between coaches). However this is not an issue that is limited to New Zealand cricket. There were similar issues in Australia between Warne and Buchanan and most spectacularly in England between Pietersen, Flintoff and a range of coaches.

An interesting story came out in 2009 where Richard Hadlee felt that Fleming had downgraded the role of coach in New Zealand. That balance in power has certainly been an issue.

Likewise there was an issue with player power in Central Districts while Dermot Reeve was coach, and almost one in Auckland not long after Paul Strang took over. In that situation Auckland Cricket acted quickly, brought in someone extra to help sort out the communication and define the roles between the senior players and the coach.

Conclusion: This is not the first time that there has been a power issue between coach and captain in New Zealand Cricket, or in international cricket in general. It is something that has been bubbling under the surface for a while. New Zealand Cricket probably need to do what Auckland did: bring in someone who is respected by both the coaches and the players, get them to work with both groups to define clearly the roles and expectations of the coach and captain. And then stick with it.

There have been so many changes in New Zealand Cricket over the past 6 years, that consistency is probably better than making more changes. However the roles need to be more clearly defined, and there needs to be a third person introduced to make sure that the two are working together correctly. That person may be the manager, or the director of cricket or someone else, but whoever it is needs to get involved before this happens a fourth time.