Playing cricket doesn't make you a journalist anymore than being blind makes you an optometrist

Hello and welcome back to my blog

I once heard a story about famous essayist and MIT linguist, Noam Chomsky: that his dentist told him he was grinding his teeth. Chomsky couldn't quite believe this, being something you generally would notice yourself doing, but the dentist was quite certain. So Chomsky and his wife endeavoured to find out how this was happening. they checked him while he slept and at other times of the day and eventually discovered that he only ground his teeth in the mornings when he read the New York Times! In my own little way I can sympathise with this clear sign of irritation from a very genial individual. While his world is one of truth, history and ethics and the distortions of them in the media, I refer to thinking on the sport of cricket and the utter nonsense printed in papers, drooled on radio or spouted on television, allowed to happen simply because someone being interviewed happens to have 'former player' in front of their name
Just because a person plays the game for X-number-of seasons or in Y-number-of teams or takes Z-number-of wickets, DOESN'T make them an automatic expert on its politics, mechanics or the needs/wants/future of any other player or team. It's fair to ask specific players about specific aspects such as interviewing Allan Border about New Zealand's current predicament given his efforts to turn around a team that had hit rock bottom (1980s Australian team). However his expertise is limited to that area; it's advice not gospel. We don't need headlines like 'Black Caps too soft, Border says' - he doesn't know the players! Print his advice based on his own trials and tribulations but don't pretend he knows anything about OTHER teams. Not to sound to harsh about Border (as far as I know, there is no such article) but you don't have to look far to find an example of your own, in any sport in any form of media
This is a large subject for which one entry will not suffice. Today I want to deal with some examples from the last week or so, talking about the recent tour to Bangladesh and the way forward for the team. In the near future I will post about TV commentary where the most obvious examples of what I'm talking about exist.

The problems facing New Zealand Cricket are, have always been and, with a population of just four million, are likely to remain Legion, but in terms of discussing what course to take for now, we can laugh some arguments out right away and focus on the important ones

First of all, and this is less a question to be argued than a general question I put to you that is outside my ability to answer, is it appropriate to be using a high performance manager who has specialised in individual athletes rather than a large team sport? I am unsure on this point but it has been raised recently so I hope readers with opinions/knowledge in this area can offer some assistance in the comments section. Second, should Daniel Vettori be removed from the selection panel and focus on simply being captain, coach, top-bowler, top-order batsman and senior player? From my wording of the question you may be able to guess my answer - no he shouldn't! Certainly not after one ODI series loss ever if it was against Bangladesh, it was not the failure of new players of his choosing that led the team's poor performance - the blame lies more at the senior end of the team sheet where people like McCullum, Taylor and Ryder barely managed to maintain their average let alone build on it (as was expected)

The most entertaining (and least useful) question is whether the 4-0 loss was the team's worst effort/result in its 80 year history. I'm not sure I would cite, as others have, the '26 all out' innings from the 50s as the worst given that we now have a professional (by definition if not always in practice) team. Some commentators mentioned the 5-0 losses to Australia, Pakistan or South Africa between 2000 and 2005, my disagreement here is that we were not likely to beat those sides - compete YES but winning was always going to be difficult. Also it must be remembered that some of the losses in Bangladesh were very close (unlike many of those in the three series mentioned above) so if we really have to make a comparison my vote goes to the 3-0 test series defeat in England in 2004. Although the score lines were not as close, the two teams were evenly matched and only batting collapses on Day 4 of all three tests prevented a different result. This series took place just 5 years after NZ had won 2-1 in 1999 and the team was coming off a competitive series draw against South Africa. For me the disappointment is the same (I would also point to that series as the beginning of the decline for the team that reached its lowest point last week)

Now here is a question I pose myself: why is Matthew Sinclair constantly announced as the ‘veteran test international’ – literally true but not the reason he is called such by The Herald and others. This description suggests that the opinion which follows is that of a competent thinker on the New Zealand game; am i the only one who finds this laughable. If you are not immediately convinced ask yourself what kind of intellectually honest person could criticise the batsmen for not using their feet to the spinners having himself turned into the Head Lecturer at the School for Shoving-your-pad-forward-and-hoping.

You might say he is just a player they bring on every now and then to talk about batting (although at this point in the blog I would hope you wouldn't see this as an excuse), OK fine. What about the former player that the Dominion Post employs to talk cricket, namely Mr. Jonathan Millmow who is a perfect example of the point. He wrote this week about the problems with the Black Cap team and the structure of NZC and in short, you know as a reader that you're in trouble when the first line you read is 'The cracks were starting to appear...'.

Millmow announced the failure of the new management structure (Vettori, Greatbatch and Roger Mortimer) as if it had been in place for over a season (which it hasn't!) and his solution is to throw John Wright into the melee right before the World Cup (which is not fair on him or the players). He then blamed the lower-than-expected sign up for Johnsonville's junior clubs this season on the recent loss - just because he's fickle doesn't mean that children are!

This is garbage as content but even when he has the ghost of a point, feels the need to chuck in cliche like 'shuffling the deckchairs' as if the recent 4-0 loss were some kind of ice berg (to complete the saying) that will sink New Zealand cricket. The use of cliche in sports commentary is the most irritating part about it because the meaning is completely lost to the speaker who just blurts it out robotically and should be revealed as the incompetent thinker that they are. Case in point would be Mark Richardson's line on Prime recently "it was an awful segue (in agreement with his co-host) and now the soccer where it was a game of two halves..."

There should be room for professional writers and journalists in this kind of discussion not just professional cricketers-turned-would-be-writer. Then perhaps the REAL question that should be being asked at this moment can be considered: why was it necessary to split the Bangladesh tour and have the test played next April. I realise that lines about the weather and scheduling reside in the answer but you can't tell me that the decision wasn't made on the grounds that we should fill the period October-February with as much ODI cricket as possible. The former player may get this far and smile with pride but the better thinker on this point will point out that playing test cricket doesn't impact your ability to play ODI cricket (in fact it enhances it) and it is actually the reverse that is true. By shuffling Test cricket to the end of the season we are hobbling ourselves. We do the same to our minds if we continue to listen to these former players all of the time

Well that's it from here and I hope you join me again

It's good bye for now