Who Should We Blame For the Black Caps?

David Shearer's many faults are clear for all to see. He is too soft and nice for politics. His treatment of David Cunliffe also shows him to be far too nasty, arrogant and power-crazed to hold office. He is too right-wing, too left-wing, too centrist, and a neoliberal to boot. His policy proposals are both too timid and too radical. He is weak and has allowed himself to be dominated by a few in caucus, even as he ruthlessly dispatched to the back-benches a caucus member who challenged him. Labour's rise in the polls in recent months is a mere accident, because everyone who reads the blogs knows Shearer's not up to the job. And those people who write the blogs sure know a thing or two, don't they?

New Zealand Cricket: Ten Reasons To Be Positive

A casual observer of the New Zealand men's cricket team might be forgiven for thinking that things were about as bad as they could possibly be.

The sacking of Ross Taylor, and Jesse Ryder's lack of desire to return to the national team, would appear to point to problems at the top.

Please Rate This Post Between 1-10 For Offensiveness

Robert Mugabe has spent decades beating down the people of Zimbabwe, but he still hasn't won, and opposition to his rule remains strong.

And yet the Black Caps destroyed Mugabe's beloved Zimbabwe's cricket team in less than three days.

Zimbabwean opposition, get your shit together!

Two Golds, Three Silvers: Black Caps Thrilled With Series Result

The New Zealand cricket team were in full celebration mode, after a gutsy 3-2 One Day series loss to Pakistan.

Stand-in skipper Ross Taylor said he was delighted with the progress of the team.

"We really stamped our authority on Pakistan in all of the matches in this series," said Taylor.

"The most important thing was that we cemented our place amongst the top ten cricketing nations."

Coach John Wright said he thought there were still a few areas of the game to work on, but that the team's progress through the series had been stunning.

"Our batting has been poor, our bowling mediocre, and our fielding a regular disappointment. We lack depth and talent in key places, and some of our supposedly best players appear to lack form.

"But two wins and a draw is an exceptional result. That's two golds and three silvers. To put that in perspective, the entire New Zealand Olympic squad only got three golds in Beijing. We almost matched that in one series.

"I'm really thrilled with the boys."

New Zealand Cricket CEO Justin Vaughan said the team could take a lot of positives from the series.

"Pakistan's in the top ten in world cricket, even if they have numerous players out due to various match-fixing scandals, and even though a permanent taint of suspicion lingers over every loss they suffer, and even though they were playing away from home on pitches that did not suit them. And yet we beat them twice, and were only smashed out of three games.

"This puts us comfortably ahead of the USA, Russia and China in the international cricket one-day rankings. When you consider the population of China alone, that is a truly remarkable effort.

"As far as I know, the Chinese have never beaten Pakistan in an official one-day international. We did it twice."

Injured captain Daniel Vettori confirmed that the team was hopeful of a top-eight finish in the upcoming World Cup.

"We'll have to play well to beat teams like Kenya, though.

"Of course you always go there to win, but if we can end the tournament having done better than the likes of the Netherlands, Ireland, Canada and Zimbabwe then I'll be thrilled."

Trouble In NZ Cricket?

Mark Geenty of the Dominion Post reports:

John Wright's tenure as national coach has had a rocky start, with cricket boss Justin Vaughan forced to over-rule Brendon McCullum's omission from the Twenty20 squad to face Pakistan.

McCullum's name was added to the squad yesterday after Vaughan, the NZC chief executive, intervened when he became aware McCullum was upset at being sidelined without a fitness test.

The Dominion Post understands the selection panel of Mark Greatbatch, Glenn Turner and Lance Cairns, along with new coach Wright and captain Daniel Vettori, decided to omit McCullum from the three-match series due to his back soreness, so he would be fit for the first test in Hamilton on January 7.

A source said the explosive batsman was "devastated" after being told of his omission by Greatbatch, and this was conveyed by an unknown person to Vaughan on Tuesday.

One has to wonder how the collective wisdom of so many great past and present players (between the selectors, the captain and coach they have 310 test caps, 615 ODI caps 15327 test runs and 10721 ODI runs) can be overruled by someone who, while a handy cricketer in his time, failed to make a lasting impression (6 tests, 18 ODIs, a batting average in both codes of about 18, and 26 wickets in total).

NZ cricket clearly has problems, and especially with the quality of our one-day and T20 sides. But this is not simply because we lack quality players. The problems may go deeper. The interference by management with what should be purely a selection decision suggests there are problems at the top. Shouldn’t we be leaving selection decisions to the guys who are, well, selectors?

How Can Nobody Be To Blame?

It would have been interesting to listen in on the discussions at New Zealand Cricket when Daniel Vettori and Mark Greatbatch fronted up to explain why the team performed so poorly.

They must have been pretty convincing, because not only do they keep their jobs, but apparently no significant changes are proposed for the upcoming tour of India.

There probably isn't that much they can do at this late stage anyway, other than drop some players. This close to a tour it isn't feasible to dump anyone in the management team. So if players are to be axed, who would they get rid of?

When players fail to fire that badly you can either pin the blame on the players themselves, or the management structure supporting them. Ultimately it is the role of the players to go out there and get runs and wickets. Good management can help, but it won't make the difference between a series victory and a 4-0 drubbing.

So we don't have the right players. You can forgive the younger ones for failing to perform. They're junior and Bangladesh is a tough place to tour. It's not as if domestic cricket in this country truly hardens players for intimidating conditions.

But there were enough senior players on tour (e.g. Vettori, McCullum, Mills, Taylor) to have ensured that, even if the younger ones failed, someone would step up. Yet the tour stats show that some of the juniors were better performers. For example Kane Williamson got a century and led the tour batting averages.

So something is wrong. To do nothing won't suffice. If the problem isn't the management then it's the senior players. India will be rubbing their hands together at the prospect of playing New Zealand. Let us pray we show more resolve than we did in Bangladesh.

The Day Sutcliffe Top Scored With Eleven

The Herald asks if the 4-0 loss to Bangladesh is NZ cricket's lowest moment yet.

It certainly isn't. This is:

It would take a masterfully inept performance to come close.

Update: NZ cricket great John Reid says the Bangladesh result is worse that the 26. Well he would, wouldn't he? He'd be quite pleased to get that particular monkey off his back. But I think he's also being a bit insulting towards Bangladesh. They are improving. Unlike NZ.

Blackcaps v Australia - Full Innings Commentary - Updated

Now you can keep track of the Champions Trophy Final while you're at work, with this exciting new feature on Imperator Fish.

I will keep this page updated during the morning.

New Zealand Innings

4th over: Ahh!

19th over: No!

23rd over: Crap!

24th over: D'oh!

27th over: Ouch!

41st over: Shit!

42nd over: Bugger!

44th over: F#*k!

47th over: Sigh...

Closing comments: Doomed


Australian Innings

2nd over: Yes!

3rd over: Ooh!

4th to 34th over: No no no make the pain go away! The horror! The horror!

35th over: Yes!

36th - 38th overs: Hope turns to despair...

39th over: ...turns to hope again..

40th - 46th overs: ... before despair returns.

Closing comments: WE'RE NUMBER TWO! WE'RE NUMBER TWO!

TAKE THAT INDIA. PAKISTAN, ENGLAND, SRI LANKA, WEST INDIES AND SOUTH AFRICA!

This Fool Had It Coming

We haven't had a fool inducted in my petty little Hall of Shame for a while.

But someone we all know has been working hard, and I think it's time he got his just desserts.

On Tuesday John Minto blogged that salaries over $250,000 should be subject to a 100% tax rate.

Such a move, if implemented, would destroy the New Zealand economy almost overnight. The flight of capital to Australia and other countries would be dizzying. Without this capital, the economy would stagnate, and New Zealand would become a basketcase.

His comments have attracted some attention, but mostly derision. And rightly so.

His latest target is the New Zealand cricket team:

Global Peace and Justice Auckland is angry the Blackcaps cricket team has bailed out on humanitarian support for the 280,000 Tamil people incarcerated in military camps following the recent civil war.

Before the cricketers left they met with representatives of the New Zealand Tamil community, along with GPJA, where the team was requested to use its high public profile to help keep the international spotlight on the humanitarian crisis facing the Tamil population.

NZ Cricket and player reps agreed they would do what they could without getting involved in the politics (which they were never requested to do). With this in mind no protests were organised against the team leaving for Sri Lanka.

Subsequently agreement was reached between Fonterra, World Vision and representatives of the New Zealand Tamil community whereby the Blackcaps would publicly and symbolically facilitate the transfer of milk powder products from Fonterra in Sri Lanka to World Vision for the victims of war in the military camps where there is an on-going humanitarian catastrophe.

The Blackcaps then got cold feet with Dave Currie (NZ Cricket manager with the Blackcaps) refusing to allow the cricketers to take part. Currie says he fears for the safety of the players. If helping feed starving people with milk powder is going to compromise player safety then what are the Blackcaps doing in Sri Lanka in the first place?

Dave Currie is to be commended for getting our players the hell away from this issue. The Black Caps have been caught up with violence in Sri Lanka before. Why on Earth did they agree (if in fact they even did) to get involved with the Tamil issue?

And as for "what are the Blackcaps doing in Sri Lanka in the first place?", I believe they're over there to play cricket.

The decision of the judges is unanimous: John Minto is the newest Imperator Fish Fool of the Moment.