Hello and welcome back to my blog

Man looks in the abyss.
There's nothing staring back at him.
At that moment, man finds his character.
And that is what keeps him out of the abyss

(Hal Holbrook's character Lou in the 1987 Oliver Stone film Wall Street)

The New Zealand Black Caps could be said to have stumbled towards an abyss this year after falling from their No. 2 ranking to No. 7 in the ODI standings, culminating this week with a series whitewash to Bangladesh. Any ideas of planning our way to World Cup success next year with rotations and a plethora of games in subcontinent conditions have been shown up as foolish at best. The arrogance to think we could ignore our opposition in Bangladesh and instead randomly blood new players anywhere in the order has come back to hurt the team and injure its confidence for months to come
The facade of ODI competence has been removed and illusions of grandeur shattered as the team reached the nadir of its existence on the low, slow, spinning pitches of the subcontinent's worst team. The squad now faces several days where they will be attacked in every paper, radio coloumn and television news room around the world and they must perservere.
The first calls will be for sackings (not really an option at this point) and after those people are laughed into silence the more ridiculous questions over Vettori's multiple roles will emerge. The Herald has already obliged by digging up people like Burgess and Morrison (not Danny) to reveal how little they know about current international cricket; just because you played the game doesn't entitle you to stop paying attention BUT STILL offer up opinion as any kind of expert (more about this in future posts). It would be wrong, for instance, to accuse the Black Caps of complete failure in their recent efforts - this would undermine some very impressive cricket played by Bangladesh over the last ten days, and thus headlines including things like 'worst defeat ever' are unlettered and offensive to any cricket lover.
To begin with, some of the bowling and catching by the hosts was better than anything I have seen from them and most importantly they pulled it off when key players were involved (the catch to get Vettori in this last match for example). Also the Black Caps bowlers did fairly well on slow pitches and with no preparation. It was really the batting that dived to new depths of incompetence, embarrassment and all-round failure with each of the top SEVEN being found out on more than one occasion. The obvious problem here is that without THREE front line spinners to attack with in February next year, the team will need totals of 250+ to have a hope of winning matches. The first lesson to learn is that 50 runs cannot be scored in the opening 10 overs - a fact apparent the last time we toured there but apparently forgotten - only Williamson, Taylor and Elliott showed any Patience and took the time to build their innings.
However the most glaring error for me was the combination of Vettori/management claiming that this tour was being taken seriously AND the media reporting this without question as fact! It was impossible to believe this after the very first game where Stewart was a specialist batsman at 7 thus keeping out the necessary extra spinner required to play in the subcontinent. Then the bizarre way the team was shuffled around for each game, the whole business was clearly an effort to expose players to the conditions. This was amazingly arrogant given that we had to eek out a 2-1 victory last time we toured there and was punished by an improving opposition accordingly

Across the pond (to borrow an Anglo-American expression for the Atlantic divide - much better than 'the ditch') our Australian 'friends' must be experiencing similar notions of shame and dismay - particularly with an important Ashes contest approaching (at least NZ won't be expected to WIN in India) - and the horrible realisation that they now sit at their lowest point on the Test rankings. Like the New Zealand team they jetted off to the subcontinent looking to build momentum for more important ends later in the summer and, by not putting in the effort in the short term, have gone backwards instead.
Finally the stereotype that Hauritz is in anyway a world class spinner has been dismantled as nonsense and fears about the damage that Swann might do in Australia from November to January must surely have trebled. If the lie about Hauritz has been discredited then the one about Watson has not, although he showed good concentration at times the pace bowling on show was not of the quality he will come up against at the Gabba or Perth and the letters L B W will begin to appear next to his name as soon as that series starts.
Lastly on the Australian question, problems are definitely apparent in areas like converting starts - not usually a problem for the baggy-green XIs but have plagued their scorecards for twelve months now - also the killer instinct of their bowling attack has certainly died and without it they will struggle to beat the top sides.

There is a great deal of doom and gloom here I realise but I now offer the light to keep my fellow cricket lovers in the game. In 1987 the Australian team led by Allan Border failed to win The Ashes at home and while drowning their sorrows they watched their own Prime Minister mock them on national television and at that point they new they had hit rock bottom. That was it, there would be no more losing or the feeling of inevitability to their defeat - they would regroup as a team and come through the hard time to regain their respect and standing in the cricket world. They proceeded to win the World Cup later that year, The Ashes in England (4-0) in 1989 and dominate the 1990s and 2000s like no other team had managed before them. This is what needs to happen for the teams of Oceania. These teams now have a core of players who have experienced the worst of their mistakes and must use the pain and humiliation to forge ahead. They need to find their character and escape the abyss that now threatens to consume them

Well that's it from here and I hope you join me again
It's good bye for now