KEY POINTS:
Sanath Jayasuriya, Upul Tharangam, Mahela Jayawardena and Kumar Sangakkara are world-class players and McLean Park on Thursday was a world-class batting surface. James Franklin, Michael Mason, Andre Adams and Mark Gillespie are not world-class but that is the purpose of this rotation theory - to pit our sometimes-international-class players against world-class players in non-typical New Zealand conditions.
Therefore for this theory to work, experience must be gained, lessons learned and improvement occur or all we have is a theory that pits an 'A' New Zealand team against another country and have them regularly beat us.
The first lesson I hope our bowlers learned as they were being mauled by Jayasuriya and co is that at international level, they will not get away with what they do at provincial level. One bad ball an over will be put away because they are bowling to better players. Combine that with the way quality players work good balls for singles and also have an efficient boundary option for balls of a good line and length then, very quickly, bowlers can go for six to eight runs an over.
The second lesson I hope was learned was that the big stage, combined with the pressure a quality player exerts, causes nerves. The more anxiety the harder it is to perform. Yet, on this stage, players must perform at or above their best under conditions of high anxiety.
The third lesson was that teams must be able to change plans quickly and effect those plans with accuracy. Jayasuriya was in such a mood that he was targeting good length balls just outside off-stump - generally where a bowler is looking to aim early on. No one managed to change their line quickly nor go to fuller or shorter length, nor use changes in pace with much accuracy. It's not just up to the captain to stay ahead of the game and read the situation.
Andre Adams and James Franklin have had these lessons before; Gillespie and Mason not so often but all must get better. There is no doubt they have ability and are giving nothing less than 100 per cent effort. The simple fact is they must improve as cricketers or John Bracewell and his system of rotation granting international opportunities is just wasting everyone's time - specifically, time in the middle for those incumbents who could surely do with it.
Stephen Fleming often uses the explanation following a beating from the likes of Australia that they were out-skilled and he would be right.
Problem is, up-skilling takes time. It takes not only hard work but also intelligent hard work repeated over time. What scares me is that the time available before the World Cup may not even be enough for our better incumbents to gain the skill needed on a consistent basis to win a World Cup - let alone those who are part of the larger squad.
The simple fact of the matter is, the Black Caps' wider squad must be extremely fast learners.
