Field Theory by Hadyn Green

That's enough to get them a bloody well done?

When you look at that photo, and think about test cricket, it does make a mockery of cricket uniforms and colours. There's not really any need for it in the game, it's just cricket getting into the merchandising game isn't it?

The bizarre wheedling around the new coach's position, which doesn't really seem to me to be a coach, but more an advisor, amuses me. In what other sport does the captain have such control over the team relative to the coach? You wouldn't see McCaw picking the team and telling them all what to do while Graham Henry works on technical details with one forward in the corner.

@Kyle:
the "captain is in charge" thing seems to be harking back to days gone by. until the mid-70s, international cricket teams didn't have coaches. they had a captain and a manager, but the manager's job mainly consisted of making sure everyone got on the team bus before it left. in the old days, i'm not sure how common it was to have the captain as a selector, although i don't think it was that unusual.

So pleased to see the NZers playing again last night.

With two McCullums. Two. Lovely. We are spoiled.

But it would be nice if someone could help Bangladesh with their fielding. *sigh*

BTW I saw a piece on Jesse Ryder on sport news several weeks ago - he looked terribly jaded and not at all well. To be honest it was bloody worrying.

The "captain is in charge" thing seems to be harking back to days gone by. until the mid-70s, international cricket teams didn't have coaches. they had a captain and a manager, but the manager's job mainly consisted of making sure everyone got on the team bus before it left...

...which inspired Shane Warne's famous remark that the only coach worthwhile is the one you sit in and takes you to the game. However, in the case of NZ, particularly their top order, I think there does need to be someone to work on the players' technique and application. There's a helluva lot of raw and not quite realised talent there, but they just don't seem to be able to concentrate long enough to get through.

Tim Mackintosh, as turgid as he is to watch, seems to have the discipline, but so far he doesn't have the runs- Richardson was such an asset because he held up one end *and* made sure the score ticked over, albeit at a relatively slow pace.

There have been examples of coaches really changing and revving up sides, in the relatively recent past though, Steve Rixon really pulled the Black Caps into shape after the shambles of the Howarth/Turner* years (I've talked to sports reporters who used to watch their training sessions, apparently he put them through the ringer), while Bob Woolmer was a bloody innovative coach for South Africa, clearly responsible for moulding them into the most attacking team of their era- even if they didn't ever quite overcome their Aussie bogeyman under his watch- that would come once Smith arrived as captain.

Also, before he became baffling and dictatorial, you can't deny the influence Duncan Fletcher had in pulling the English side together and eventually taking them to Ashes glory. Everything, for a brief moment, clicked.

I think Greatbatch seems a good fit, he's obviously had experience with many of the players (Ryder, Oram, Taylor, etc) as CD coach, while he can clearly pass on some of his own knowledge. Before his catastrophic form slump, he was a superb batsman and genuinely innovative in the case of the 1992 World Cup, while he's also responsible for arguably the finest reargard innings in NZ test history where he batted for hours on end against Australia to save ta test in 1990.

*Glen Turner's coaching tenure in the 90s was a litany of "bold" decisions that were just downright stupid, in retrospect, and he clearly didn't have control of the players.

the "captain is in charge" thing seems to be harking back to days gone by. until the mid-70s, international cricket teams didn't have coaches. they had a captain and a manager, but the manager's job mainly consisted of making sure everyone got on the team bus before it left. in the old days, i'm not sure how common it was to have the captain as a selector, although i don't think it was that unusual.

Yes. But it's very unusual for the modern professional sporting era. No one else is going in this direction are they?