KEY POINTS:
Black Caps coach John Bracewell showed signs of suffering from sportsman's syndrome in the Adam Gilchrist fiasco this week.
When you live in the sports cocoon, it's easy to lose sight of what life is like out there in the real word.
When all you do is deal with cricketers and the media, you end up divorced from reality. It's not a good place to be and Bracewell needs to take a breather, step back for a few days, and get a decent perspective on cricket and life again.
Quite what was going through his mind when he elected to fire a shot at Gilly is anybody's guess but the result was clear - in the real world it's called defamation and when ordinary people do it they end up in court for a few years buried in litigation.
Some of the problems Bracewell has had - specifically his well publicised dealings with Andre Adams and Nathan Astle - are a consequence of his inability to step out of the cricket cocoon.
Sport often portrays dealing with people as the big scary monster, but it's not that difficult. Sportsmen aren't actually that tough to manage - you just need to find which buttons to push. The concern about the Gilchrist affair is it suggests that Bracewell is struggling to make good decisions, and that is almost certainly affecting the Black Caps' performances.
What you need are an environment of respect and some strong basic rules, such as turning up for games in reasonable shape, turning up to practice and so on. The key here is performance - if you want special treatment you earn it through special performance.
The Gilchrist affair was damaging to the Black Caps' culture, and was disappointing because it was a completely meaningless distraction that was never going to achieve anything for anybody.
Bracewell's comments were symptomatic of a guy under pressure. No matter who you are you will make mistakes but the golden rule is that when you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.
The problem for the Black Caps is that while their leading players are in reasonable form, they are not producing their best at the same time.
Daniel Vettori is, no doubt, starting to learn that being captain isn't that much fun unless you are winning - in terms of his performance it's early days, but his major brief is clear - to draw better performances out of the players rather than set the world alight with revolutionary tactics.
Fortunately Bangladesh have arrived. They are okay and improving but you don't want to be the team that is tipped over by them. The matches against Bangladesh will be a valuable chance for the Black Caps to get more consistent form and set them up for a big run later in the summer.
