Editorial: Cricket's bouncers behind the scenes

Cricket must be a fearsome game at the highest level. To stand armed only with a piece of wood while somebody hurls a hard ball at you time and again for as long as you can protect the wicket behind you would make you almost immune, you would think, to most of life's other slings and arrows. But not our national team.

They have lately become as sensitive to public criticism as the most precious of prima donnas. And they are far from the status of prima donnas of New Zealand sport. In fact, they might count themselves extremely fortunate still to receive the attention we give them considering the popular demand for sporting success and the disappointments the Black Caps have brought us far too often for far too long.

Their total annihilation at Taupo on Tuesday, by Zimbabwe for heavens' sake, was surely the nadir. But there is worse off the field. There is a lack of professionalism in their attitude to criticism, a belief perhaps that their critics should temper their comments and write with the same inhibitions that characterise our men at the crease. It is sad that two of the team's least inhibited batsmen, Nathan Astle and Craig McMillan, should adopt a sullen attitude to reporters after both hit centuries at the Basin Reserve last week. They were smarting at a suggestion that their selections had been in doubt. The suggestion had come directly from a comment by the convener of selectors, Sir Richard Hadlee.

Now Sir Richard is cross with us, apparently over column by Don Cameron, well known to Herald readers, who canvassed various utterances of Sir Richard recently and wrote: "It is difficult to differentiate among Hadlee's private comments, his new-found selectorial pulpit, his public newspaper column remarks and the separate stories so often an extension of the column (we imagine he writes)."

Sir Richard took vengeance yesterday, refusing to say a word to any of the print media about the two changes to the team for the second one-day match with Zimbabwe. If all of this sounds petty, it is. But it is just the latest in a series of such exchanges between this newspaper and the convener of selectors, who sorely needs a sense of humour. When our cricket writer, Richard Boock, examined the records of the Marshall brothers and suggested that the selection of Hamish Marshall over his identical twin was a case of mistaken identity, Sir Richard took it seriously.

What is serious is that the convener of selectors sees no conflict of interest in continuing to give his name to a column in a Sunday newspaper. Let's see if we can help him. Presumably he is paid for that contribution. He must, therefore, be open to the suspicion that there is pressure on him to reserve at least some of his selectorial views and explanations for those who pay him. That does not help his credibility among some reporters who are wrestling with the task of explaining his selection decisions.

And they sometimes defy explanation. As Boock reported yesterday, the number of players selected for New Zealand since Sir Richard took over is approaching 30 - about half the number of genuine first-class cricketers in the country. Even allowing for the number of injuries, it is a remarkable turnover of players in a short time. In that time they have won the world knock-out tournament in Kenya but have not won a match out of the four tests and six one-day internationals they have played since then.

Now players are being plucked from provincial teams on the strength of one good performance, and sometimes not even that if their technique looks mildly promising. They are brought in with a fanfare, given a game or two and discarded, probably never to recover from the disappointment or to develop further. Boock might not be entirely joking when he writes that anyone playing domestic cricket is in grave danger of a call-up to the national side. It is becoming a kiss of death.

The team's struggles on the pitch probably contribute to a lack of professionalism off it. But the latter is more easily fixed. If they concentrate on their job, and leave the writers to theirs, it might even come right.