PORT ELIZABETH - Sir Richard Hadlee would have labelled himself a failure as chairman of selectors if New Zealand had not made the Super Six stage, but even now is no certainty to reapply for the post.
Hadlee said yesterday that it was too early to tell whether he would chase
the job again when his contract, along with that of coach Denis Aberhart and manager Jeff Crowe, came up for renewal after the Sri Lanka tour in May.
Having selected a side on the brink of the World Cup semifinals and who have won 10 of their last 13 one-day internationals, Hadlee was satisfied he and fellow selectors Aberhart, Ross Dykes and Brian McKechnie had done their jobs well.
But he hinted that the pressure of the role in the past three years could well make it difficult to continue.
"It has been reasonably tough because you live every ball. You sit there, watch, and make notes. You feel drained at the end of a game," Hadlee said on the eve of the big match against Australia.
"It's not as if you pick a team then just hand it over and let them get on with it. We've made some big calls, and some of them have been very hard."
Hadlee noted the newspaper column written by former team-mate Lance Cairns before the World Cup which said he, Aberhart and captain Stephen Fleming should fall on their swords if New Zealand failed to make the Super Six.
They came within a whisker of missing out, after forfeiting the Kenya game then having to wait for rain to deny South Africa a place.
Hadlee was in Durban for the South Africa-Sri Lanka match which decided New Zealand's fate, and said it was one of the toughest nights of his cricketing life.
"It would have been very disappointing, three years of planning, and not to have qualified would have been regarded as a failure. That's how hard I would have taken it," Hadlee said.
"It's testimony to the courage of the players to keep going when it's been tough."
Hadlee believed the present side was possibly the pick of any one-day international team New Zealand had fielded.
- NZPA
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