Paul Lewis: How will Bracewell arrest test decline?

No doubt John Bracewell's job as New Zealand cricket coach is secure. Rumblings suggesting otherwise are unlikely to result in any precipitate action.

It seems certain Bracewell will be in the position at least until after the 2007 World Cup, in spite of muffled reports that the selection panel have not been best pleased with some of his recent manoeuvres.

But recent Black Caps results reveal a record far from satisfactory. Our one-day record since May 2004 reads won 19, and lost 13, with four no-results. That includes wins over all the major countries except South Africa.

Our test record over the same period is won seven, drawn five, lost 11. Disturbingly, there have been no test wins over the major cricketing powers - England, Australia and South Africa. Our seven test victories have come against Bangladesh (twice), Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe (twice) and a lacklustre West Indies (twice).

Some will look at won seven, drawn five tests and see a cup half-full. But that is just statistics. Of concern is the manner of many of the losses and the fact New Zealand has just not been able to guts out a win or a draw when a win was beyond them.

It is also that New Zealand has retreated in its ability as a test nation. Bracewell's tenure, while the statistics might not exactly elicit panic, has confirmed the trend away from tests to one-dayers. The 2007 World Cup looms as a watershed in Bracewell's career as coach.

But, hang on, where have we heard that one before? Dylan Cleaver, the Herald on Sunday senior sports writer, writing for cricinfo last November said after the 4-0 one-day series defeat in South Africa: "It was a case of no steps forward but four giant steps back. The Chappell-Hadlee series is shaping as a watershed in Bracewell's career."

New Zealand lost that one, although we had that superb world-record run chase to keep us warm, with the series already lost. Through that watershed, and others, Bracewell has come under fire first for being too conservative, then for trying out new players and experimenting.

He just can't win no matter what he does, you might say. It's true, as ever, that the blokes who trot out on the paddock have a fair bit to do with things. It's also true that maybe New Zealand does not have the selectorial riches of other cricketing nations. There is no questioning Bracewell's passion or commitment.

But the biggest beef is with Bracewell's inconsistency. From the initial reluctance to blood new players and the self-fulfilling prophecy that our domestic cricket was not good enough as a testbed for new players to the shoehorning of batsmen into the vexed opening position, Bracewell has done some whopper belly flops that have helped weaken our test status.

Of course matters have not been helped by the retirement of Mark Richardson and the ongoing injury saga of Shane Bond. But New Zealand has been searching for openers, for example, long before 2006. After six long years of searching, we are now in dire need of not one but two openers. Somehow Lou Vincent did not have the technique to be an opener, according to Bracewell, and was left at home. Instead he took openers Jamie How and Michael Papps to South Africa - and played neither in the first test. Instead, Hamish Marshall - so demonstratively not an opener, it is amazing that Bracewell's astute cricket brain could not see it - was played with Peter Fulton.

Brave selections can often be inspired and there are any number of these in New Zealand's sporting history. But persisting with Marshall in this role was just plain wrong.

When How and Papps came in, on a wicket not kindly to openers, it was in the knowledge that they were the coach's third and fourth choices, hardly a boost to their confidence.

There may be some doubts about Papps at this level and there would seem to be at least as many holes in his technique as in Vincent's.

But we do not have a lot of openers from which to choose. Surely the answer is to work with what we've got - Vincent, a gutsy player and scorer of a test century vs Australia in 2001- and manufacture openers. Work on technique and forge their steel in the foundry of coaching, the nets, domestic cricket and ongoing international play which looks past failures in search of the confidence that longevity of tenure brings.

For this writer, it is akin to a crime that Mathew Sinclair could be lost to this country. Granted, Sinclair was given chances and did not always take them. But watch the man bat and it is impossible not to think he is international class. Surely he could have been grafted into an opener.

Rather than Fulton. He was one of the selectors' biggest risks - pressing him into service as an opener after he had made a good fist of number three against the West Indies. Such manipulation of promising young players is how careers can be ruined.

Yes, the World Cup looms large in Bracewell's career. But we are still waiting for an answer to the question of New Zealand's continued descent as a test nation, still the most valid measure of cricket.