Cricket: Bench-warming Black Caps to become the norm

John Bracewell

Bench-warming will become an occupational routine for New Zealand's cricketers as coach John Bracewell continues to craft his approach to winning major one-day tournaments.

New Zealand bagged an early series win over West Indies in Christchurch on Saturday following Nathan Astle's award for best solo performance by a Black Cap with an unbeaten 118 and a catch that will be housed in the "one of the best ever" category.

The 21-run triumph saw the hosts arrive here ahead of the fourth match on Wednesday 3-nil up with two games remaining allowing Bracewell and his fellow selectors the luxury of testing the exciting talent of Central Districts batsman Ross Taylor who's expected to debut.

The Black Caps brains trust continued their rotational policy by releasing Jamie How and James Franklin for the start of today's State Championship four-day games for Central Districts and Wellington respectively, while Auckland swing bowler Kyle Mills has been retained after joining the squad last week as cover for Michael Mason.

The Central Districts paceman, who's impressed in his return series, was still battling a lower back strain and was being assessed daily.

Besides shuffling players, Bracewell said yesterday that if they were serious about chasing leading one-day tournament titles, players would have to become more acquainted with the reserves bench.

"First and foremost we need to win and keep winning. That's the bottom line. How you develop a winning side when you're not using regular players is also important to us because it's relevant to tournament play.

"We've got three huge one-day tournaments coming up and there's a slightly different psyche in terms of selection," Bracewell said.

"You try to give everyone game-time, so that all options remain available. The players have to get used to sitting on the bench for a game while we involve another squad member because we need to keep everyone up to speed."

Bracewell's trinity of tournaments begins late this year with the Chappell-Hadlee series across the Tasman followed by the VB Series including hosts Australia and England next January and February.

They are ideal forerunners to the Holy Grail of one-day cricket with the 2007 World Cup in the Caribbean in 13 months.

Barring injury, constantly rejigging line-ups would normally be frowned upon as teams strive for consistency in selection, but the selectors' methods has proved fruitful to date, although West Indies pushed the hosts close in the final stages at Jade Stadium, and butchered a royal opportunity to square the series at 1-1 in Queenstown.

Taylor's inclusion was clear-cut and many pundits were calling for the 21-year-old's inclusion before game one as he averaged 67.00 from 603 State Shield runs with three centuries -- two on the trot.

How and Franklin were sent back to domestic cricket to improve their chances of test selection in the three-match series against West Indies commencing next month with How favoured for an opener's position after a solid debut international season.

"Both of them probably need a little red ball cricket to give themselves an opportunity to be selected in the test match," Bracewell said.

"I spoke to both of them. I hope they haven't just accepted it. You'd expect they would be a bit miffed and will head back into first-class cricket with a point to prove.

"They'll want to demonstrate that they're at the top of their game."

Bracewell's benching policy comes as he begins to enlarge the playing pool, and by keeping players on notice he appears to have drawn out the fighting qualities of Astle who was discarded twice this season only to come back stronger.

He capped a tumultuous season to date by hitting his 16th one-day century and then stunningly assisted in halting the West Indian advance with a reversing, one-handed full stretch leap just inside the boundary rope to dismiss the devastating Dwayne Smith.

Bracewell acknowledged their treatment of Astle was designed to "shake-up" the 210 match veteran.

"Nathan had to re-discover his fearless nature, and had perhaps become to conservative in his batting for too long. He's addressed that."

- NZPA