Graham Henry has a lot to answer for. In the wake of his revolutionary plan to take two full test teams with him to the Northern Hemisphere last year, every time there is the merest hint of change in any national team we're going to be put through endless 'rotation policy' debates.
It's the new euphemism: cricketers are no longer dropped or rested; they're rotated. It sounds uncom-fortable and for traditionalists, inside and outside of the team, it is uncomfortable.
But it's not as if New Zealand cricket is a stranger to rotation policies. They had a well-documented one during the early-90s, where every player who chanced a 50 or took a few wickets in first class was rotated through the international squad with varying degrees of failure.
So far this dramatic top-order 'rotation policy' of Bracewell's has been more mythical than methodical. A quick scan sees that Nathan Astle opened at Wellington, batted three at Queenstown and three yesterday.
Stephen Fleming has batted three, four, two. Scott Styris five, four, four. Peter Fulton six, five, five. Jamie How open, open, absent. Lou Vincent absent, open, open. Hamish Marshall five, absent, six.
There's some tinkering there, for sure, but John Bracewell would be in danger of losing his card to the Young Radicals' club if he submitted this as an example of his work. Any batsman who is finding the transition between six and five a tough jump should probably consider another career.
Today, however, is another day. Bracewell will name a squad to play the last two ODIs that is expected to contain a number of changes. A couple of players are in line for a rest before the test series, apparently.
Top of that list should be Daniel Vettori, who will be expected to bowl 200-plus overs during the test series. Brendon McCullum might be seen as too valuable a commodity to run into the ground and Styris could be told to go home and ice his knee so they can see how Ross Taylor goes.
This is all supposition, of course. There is still a strong enough streak of Canterbury conservatism at the core of this team to resist change for the sake of change. But let's just say they carry through on their threats and blood a couple of players.
If they're successful, New Zealand's pool of international class players jumps - a nice situation in the year before a World Cup. If they fail, so be it, give them more time in domestic cricket.
That cavalier approach could be weighed against the notion it could be seen as disrespectful to the opposition. There's a chance you could lose, and isn't the ethos of international cricket to win every match? Is it fair on the crowds in Napier and Auckland to watch a substandard team?
Well, the people have already voted with their feet. A reasonable 15,000 turned up to the Cake Tin, though that looked an embellished figure, while 13,000 Christchurch folk were prepared to sacrifice watching the Crusaders on telly. At Queenstown, Vettori said there were so few people there you could hear each individual comment.
You figure, then, he would have heard the comments like: "This cricket's not up to much, is it?"
It's purely anecdotal, of course, but the feeling you pick up around the traps is that this cricket has too much of the village green about it to be embraced. Plus, this could be the last realistic chance to see if there are others out there who can make the step up.
What harm can there be in trying out a few youngsters against an average team in a series that has so far failed to capture the public's attention?
None would be the obvious answer. Just make sure we don't call it rotation.
-HERALD ON SUNDAY
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