Cricket: Snedden born with cricket on the brain

Martin Snedden loved cricket so much he dreamed of playing for Australia, but the sport's new chief is a battler for New Zealand, writes RICHARD BOOCK.

Martin Snedden is a left-side-of-the-brain man, by his own admission.

New Zealand Cricket's incoming chief executive has a reputation for being an organised and logical thinker, someone whose ability as a trouble-shooter and negotiator has underpinned a successful career in law.

A man who tends to dot his i's and cross his t's, Snedden, 42, has the lawyer's knack of thinking before he speaks, and when he does have a point to make, he occasionally adopts a voice so soft it demands complete and undivided attention.

He knows this himself, so it would have come as no surprise to him when the results from the psychometrics test - which the CEO candidates were asked to complete - suggested the right-side of his brain (apparently the creative side for most people) was not in genuine competition with his left.

If this paints a faintly sombre picture of the former test cricketer, the very opposite is true. Snedden may not be Mr Spontaneity, but he does possess a ready and well-honed sense of humour, and is prepared to stand up for what he believes.

Former team-mates and officials remember him as a player who appreciated a good practical joke and took part in a few, although they said he was unable to shake off his cloak of respectability because he was one of the few in the side with a degree.

A dependable and reliable figure, he was not only seen as a useful international performer but as an able replacement for Bruce Edgar as the team's banker and bean-counter - an invaluable skill in the early days of professional cricket.

Snedden, of course, was worth far more than that. Black Cap No 149, he played 25 tests and 93 one-day internationals between 1980 and 1990 as New Zealand experienced unprecedented international success, and was vice-captain on the 1988 tour of India.

The right arm paceman took 58 test wickets at 37.91 and 114 ODI wickets at 28.39, and played 118 first-class games, 55 of them for Auckland.

But even in cricket there were indicators which pointed to Snedden's life-long strengths, not least his ability to identify his limitations, and his willingness to play within them.

He was a methodical bowler; a natural third seamer in the Ewen Chatfield mould, and a vital cog in a team that was among the best in the world. He was seldom the star but always the consummate team man, someone who would happily toil for a few hours while more illustrious team-mates recharged their batteries.

"The lawyer image is developed and trained," Snedden says, and then laughs. "It certainly didn't come naturally for me.

"My thinking's always been quite logical and at school any success usually depended on whether I was concentrating or not. I never had too many problems with exams because I could think things through, but at times I received some shocking school reports.

"It might seem like I'm suited to a career in law, but I haven't a clue about how I decided on it, really. There were strong family influences - Dad and my brother, David, were in the family business and I would later follow suit - but for the life of me, I can't recall even thinking about it at the time."

He does, however, remember thinking about cricket.

From a young age he was obsessed with the game and would constantly be playing it at the family's Mt Eden home, or else reading about it from uncle Colin's extensive library. Or just dreaming about it.

If he could not lure brothers Peter, David or Patrick, or his sister, Jenny, outside for a game, he would play by himself, throwing a rubber ball against the house and batting against the rebound.

An indication of New Zealand's modest power at that stage was that Snedden would imagine being an Australian cricketer, as - unlike his countrymen - Australia were among the strongest teams in the world and were regularly having titanic struggles against the West Indies and England.

"Everyone in the family was into sport, especially cricket and rugby," Snedden says. "I used to love listening to the short-wave radio broadcasts of the Ashes test in England, and I always wanted Australia to win - they were my favourites.

"I still have very clear memories of listening to Australia play the West Indies in the late 60s."

Snedden, it seems, caught the cricketing bug early and was probably always destined to achieve in the game. He had the brains, the ability, and, not least, he had the history of the game coursing through his veins.

The son of former Auckland representative Warwick and grandson of former New Zealand captain Nessie, he is also the nephew of former New Zealand international Colin and the great grandson of Alexander, one of Eden Park's original six purchasers and registered proprietors.

His mother, Lorna, is the daughter of former accomplished sprinter and athletics coach Bill Quane and is just as keen on sport as the rest of the family - if not more so.

Snedden, from Rosmini College, was an impressive junior cricketer and was a member of a New Zealand secondary schools side in the late 70s that included former New Zealand captain Jeff Crowe and New Zealand test representatives John and Brendon Bracewell.

Although he has precious little idea about what carried him into law, he was consumed by cricket during his teens and was in little doubt about what he wanted to do in the future.

"I can remember telling my mother as she was driving me home from school one day that I reckoned I could play for New Zealand," he says. "I was just obsessed. I can recall it clearly because we were discussing what I should do when I left school, and I had it in my mind that I should play cricket.

"As it happened, it sort of worked out like that anyway, although in those days playing cricket for a living wasn't terribly lucrative.

"I made the secondary schools team and had a fairly quick start to my first-class career, and there was even talk that I was in contention for the New Zealand team which toured England in 1978. The selectors were apparently looking for a young pace bowler and ended up taking Brendon Bracewell."

Instead, he went south to Dunedin, where he began his law degree at Otago University. During those times he remained a loyal member of the North Shore club team and would fly back to Auckland each weekend to play at the business end of the season.

It was at Otago that he met his wife, Annie, who was down from the Hawkes Bay and was also studying law.

The couple now have four children - Lucy, 13, Stephanie, 11, Michael, 8, and Ella, 6 - and their time seems to be divided between work and meeting an endless stream of sporting and recreational commitments.

"It's a challenge," he says of fatherhood. "Having four children makes things very busy, and every Saturday morning we find ourselves trying to sort out how to get to four different venues between 8 and 11 am. But it's great fun and it's particularly nice to break out of your own life and get involved with the children."

Stephanie was born midway through the epic test at Perth in the 1989-90 summer, when Snedden batted for 202 minutes while helping Mark Greatbatch and New Zealand to save the game.

He saw Stephanie for the first time when TVNZ organised a satellite link-up at the end of third day, but was already coming to terms with the idea that he should retire at the end of that season.

"I was only 32 at the time, but the second child and the fact that I wanted to throw myself into the business meant that it seemed the right time to make a break."

And so, while the playing career of Snedden ended later that season after he helped New Zealand to beat Australia in the one-off test at Wellington, the administrative and management career was just beginning.

The same year he was elected to the NZC board and, after serving a two-year term, was elected again in 1999.

Snedden will retain his position on the board until taking up his role as chief executive on July 30.