KEY POINTS:
Before we get all panicky and start savaging John Bracewell and the Black Caps - oh, too late? - let's remember how new cricket is to the bold, new fad sweeping the world. And I don't mean not wearing knickers and doing the splits while getting out of
a cab; deliberately mis-spelling your baby's name so Makayla (instead of Michaela) can be 'unique'; or buying an SUV so you too can drive like a complete prat while talking on your cellphone and sod the rest of the world.
If you do all three, then I apologise. I'm really sorry you're like that. No, I mean rotation _ the first experience of which the Black Caps gained in their rather amazing loss to Sri Lanka this week and which they will be seeking to put right today.
Some key points should be made:
1. Bracewell, like his rugby counterparts, has no other stage on which to try out his proteges, given his oft-expressed conviction that our domestic cricket isn't up to it.
2. Bracewell's focus is similarly the World Cup and he could reasonably argue that no one will remember the series against Sri Lanka (unless, of course, we make a complete omelette of it).
3. The Sri Lankans aren't half bad at one day cricket, Sanath Jayasuriya in particular. I can remember attending a cricket sixes tournament in Singapore which Jayasuriya won on his own. Like Napier, it had short boundaries square of the wicket and Jaya blasted away, dropkicking sixes over square leg, cutting over point and cover driving for six upon six. The ground was in the middle of what is effectively a giant traffic island and I even thought, at one stage, that he was trying to pick the car that he would hit with the ball, but I may have been imagining it.
There is one enormous flaw in the rotation of a New Zealand cricket team _ unlike the All Blacks, we do not have the depth of talent. Where Bracewell went a bit skew-whiff is that he threw so many new players into the mix at once.
Take a look at those All Black teams fielded by Graham Henry; all had senior players cleverly mixed with newbies. Oh, and they won.
That's where the Bracewell rotation theory crashes and burns a bit. There's little point in searching for answers while getting the wax thumped out of your ears. Being vindalooed by Sri Lanka benefits no one, especially new players like Mark Gillespie, Michael Mason, the Marshalls and even the more experienced James Franklin and Andre Adams, who is trying to win back his place in the team.
Some of you might argue that the bowlers may learn from this and point to Ross Taylor's debut hundred. Fair enough, too, but remember that he played a supporting role to Nathan Astle at first, letting the older player take on the Sri Lankans (albeit a bit luckily) and benefiting from the partnership.
It's the same for bowlers _ the Gillespies, Masons and Adams all benefit from bowling along experienced sorts like Shane Bond and even Chris Martin. Martin might bat like Peter Such but he's been an effective bowler lately and I doubt he would have pattered in off a short run and failed to find his length, as Franklin did.
Such, incidentally, was the celebrated off-spinner and England No 11 who was such a bad bat that he once went up to fellow batsman Jonathan Agnew (now a cricket commentator) during a test for England and said: "Aren't you going to congratulate me on my hundred?" Agnew said: "What, season?" Such said: "No, career."
Fleming may well benefit from a rest after some scratchy performances of late but he has often seemed a cricketer who profits from more time in the middle, not less. We still don't know if Bond is injured or just being spelled but, if the latter, why play him in the Twenty20s? Surely one or two of the new bowlers would have fed off Bond's ability, giving them more chance of taking wickets at the other end _ adding to their confidence instead of sending it scuttling down a deep, dark hole.
Easy to be wise after the event, I know, but if you again look at the All Blacks, Henry generally kept his matchwinners - Richie McCaw and Dan Carter - in the side and rotated around them and other experienced players.
Similarly, when the Australian cricket team have new blood, they introduce it into a highly experienced core of players - not only to support them but also to see if they can compare.
Either seems a more defensible rationale than a rotation selection which seemed to have more in common with the way the tribes are chosen in Survivor. With the two most experienced players sent to 'Exile Island'.
We have to acknowledge injuries to experienced players like Kyle Mills, Jacob Oram and Scott Styris (one day all-rounders all) but still... those are more reasons to include Fleming, Bond and Martin. Aren't they?