Mark Richardson: Believe me, the future is looking bright

Opinion

Please be patient. I know you are all upset, let down, whatever, but please be patient. Yes, we are paid professionals, paid to perform and produce results - but let's put the last few weeks into perspective.

Of our last seven test matches we have lost five and the two we did win were against a club team. Pretty poor reading really, but if you scratch below the surface it all looks good for the future. Big statement? Not so long as everyone, not just the players, acts on the lessons handed out.

In my opinion, we have been beaten by two teams at the peak of their powers, one ranked two in the world and the other ranked one, both by quite some way.

In England we learned we will not win test matches without test match bowlers. You need a bit of pace, be able to hit the right length and hit it hard and do it time and time again.

In Australia that was reinforced, but also that the idea of batting was to score runs. Without an efficient means of doing so against the best bowlers you are a sitting duck.

The challenge for we players is to gain the skills required for test success. It is not far away in some, but consistency is needed. The challenge for you the critic is to have the strength to overlook the England and Australia results and brace yourself for winning cricket against the teams that follow.

Look, I'm not saying it is OK to lose to Australia. I know the importance the New Zealand sporting public place on an Australian scalp and I accept that we should have at least put up a better fight. What I'm saying is this: the current Australian cricket team is the All Blacks of the late 1980s and we are the English rugby team, God forbid maybe even Wales.

We will probably lose most games, but in being beaten up by a champion and learning from it we might have a shot at winning the 'Five Nations'.

Now, should we not move forward from this horrific period in our sporting history and fail to give South Africa a hiding in South Africa, then by all means ring up Deaker, Hill, Telfer and whoever else wants to listen and give the Black Caps hell.

I believe we will move forward from this episode, but it will undoubtedly take a little patience, a lot of commitment, clear direction and a change of culture.

The current crop of players can make a shift. The batting isn't too far off, in fact most of our batters have good records against all nations except Australia, and I'm sure some of our champs from the '80s were similar against the West Indies of the '80s. The biggest shift for the batting is to make improvements in their methods of scoring against quality bowling and it isn't a big shift.

With the bowling we need to find a spearhead and support seamers to bowl around that player, just like Chatfield, Cairns and Snedden did for Sir Richard. [Shane] Bond was great but [Ian] Butler is a big hope and players like [Daryl] Tuffey, [Jacob] Oram and [Chris] Martin, if they can regularly find the right lengths, are highly capable of providing a test quality unit. [Daniel] Vettori is Vettori and leave him alone because he's bowling better than ever.

The big shift needs to be in our infrastructure. Our administration does a fine job in providing for cricket at all levels, but is it the right sort of cricket? I believe not.

Our culture of seaming wickets and poor practice facilities must change. Our belief of what is a good surface is wrong and only rewards cricket that is way removed from the requirements at test level.

When our top players want to play club cricket because it benefits them and the best players at provincial level are test players then we are on the path to cricket glory. This is what I learnt from Australia.