Cricket: Caps show we are worth playing against

Kane Williamson has been in career-best form in January.Photo/File

New Zealand may soon be marginalised away from the top tier of world cricket if the self-centred triumvirate of India, Australia and England get their own way. They already earn substantially more revenue from world cricket than the rest of the major cricket playing nations put together, yet want a larger slice of billions of dollars of revenue for themselves.

If they get their way then New Zealand may not get to play the big three.

The decision to allow this to happen or not has been deferred a month by the governing ICC after a heated meeting on Tuesday night, when the rest of the cricketing powers made their feelings known loud and clear.

Here in New Zealand, we are used to being marginalised by Australia, who have reluctantly played against us over the decades but would rather not. This despite us being competitive and beating them at times - certainly we would give them a better challenge than pathetic England managed all summer.

Remember the Chappell-Hadlee series? Yes, the Aussies said, we will play you every season. Sadly it did not last long. The trophy was contested annually from 2004-2005 until 2009-2010, with a one-off game in the 2010-2011 summer the last one played.

But I am optimistic that the other major powers will still want to play us in home-and-away series because teams, like India especially, love coming here. It is perhaps the only tour where the players can relax without security issues and fans invading their privacy.

And the Black Caps have got their timing right for once with the rejuvenation of the side and consummate victory over India in the one-day series. It follows away victories in one-day series against England and South Africa last year, and with a young side improving with every game and building depth, we must be contenders for next year's World Cup to be played here and Australia.

We certainly are garnering all the on-field headlines around the world and it was encouraging to read so many supportive comments from Indian cricket fans on cricinfo about wanting to play us in the future.

The Black Caps batting star has been Tauranga's Kane Williamson. He has had a golden January with five superb innings showcasing his superior technical ability and temperament, but also a new confidence to play innovative shots.

Williamson is now playing with the assurance that Martin Crowe and Glenn Turner brought to their batting. He plays off the back foot and against spin better than any New Zealander since Crowe and has the ability to find gaps and accelerate through the second half of his innings like Turner with Worcestershire.

Williamson's run of form started by single handedly guiding Northern Knights to the HRV Cup final, which they then won for a trip to the qualifying tournament for the lucrative Champions League to be held in India in September. His 79 not out was a sublime knock but better was to come from the 23-year-old. In four innings against India, he scored 71, 77, 65 and 60. All were at an excellent strike rate and contributed greatly to the Black Caps consistent batting totals. There was a new-found confidence to his batting, with lofted sixes over cover and wide long on now part of his repertoire. The only negative was he could not convert any of his fine starts into hundreds but if getting out between 60 and 80 is his weakness, I think we will all take that. Go the Black Caps in Wellington tomorrow - make it a 5-1 series thrashing to give India more reasons to keep playing us.