Cricket: Cairns told to perform - or else

Chris Cairns will be watched closely after his four-month break. Picture / Brett Phibbs

The international future of star allrounder Chris Cairns has been called into question just days before New Zealand leave for their controversial tour of Zimbabwe.

One of the game's most successful allrounders, Cairns retired from test and first-class cricket last year so he could concentrate more on one-day internationals and push for a place in the 2007 World Cup squad.

However, the 35-year-old was effectively placed on notice yesterday by New Zealand coach John Bracewell, who said the stop-start nature of Cairns' international commitments was now a career-threatening concern.

"Now that he's not playing one half of the game at either domestic or international level, he's got a huge hole in his programme," Bracewell said. "It's something he's going to have to look at if he wants to get back on to the park and maintain pressure on the rest of the squad. Unless he can address that issue, he's got no guarantee of continuing with the Black Caps."

New Zealand depart for their tour of Zimbabwe on Monday, and will train and play warm-up matches in Namibia before transferring to Harare to begin preparations for the two tests, and the triangular one-day series involving the hosts and India.

Bracewell said the tour was important for the New Zealand team in terms of resuming the development of their one-day game and probably even more important for Cairns in terms of his future prospects.

Cairns played his last test at Nottingham last winter but was relatively busy over the next 10 months as New Zealand contested the ICC Champions Trophy in England and returned home for a summer campaign including seven matches against Australia.

In a dozen ODIs over the 2004-05 season he performed reasonably solidly, averaging 36.44 with the bat and 24.29 with the ball, including an economy rate of 4.80.

But because he played his last ODI against Australia at the start of March, Cairns is now faced with rediscovering his form after a four-month lay-off, and while most of his team-mates have been playing abroad.

Bracewell said there was no doubt that Cairns' form would come under close scrutiny after the four-month long hiatus.

"I'm very interested in how he comes on after a lengthy break, and so are the selectors," he said.

"I think we've come to the point where we recognise that he's got to be able to maintain some rhythm in terms of his cricket.

"In the past he would either have been playing in England or over here, or he would been touring and as a result he'd been able to maintain his cricket fitness and rhythm. But this is uncharted territory for everyone and we have to watch carefully."

Bracewell said one of the complications for Cairns and the selectors was the number of useful allrounders already in, and on the fringe of, the one-day squad and the subsequent competition for places.

Jacob Oram and Scott Styris were almost certainties when fit, Daniel Vettori was starting to make an impact in both roles, Nathan Astle was bowling again, and Kyle Mills, Andre Adams and Craig McMillan were all multi-skilled.

Bracewell said Cairns was not even likely to be chosen as a supersub under the experimental new rules, as it seemed more logical to use players such as Adams or McMillan, or a specialist pace bowler.

"The bottom line is that some of our best players are allrounders, so why put them on the bench?

"I'd be more inclined to look at someone like [swing-bowler] Chris Martin, who hasn't been seen as an ODI player in the past, but who could certainly play a role under the new rules."