Paul Lewis: Hush-hush is not working

Ah, the good old cover up. It's alive and well and living at New Zealand Cricket.

In the last two weeks, there have been two separate incidents, one uncovered by the Herald on Sunday, which NZC has attempted to deal with by the time-honoured tradition of saying nothing and then, if discovered, making out it was no big deal in the first place.

The whole business has been made even more intriguing by hiring the head honcho of New Zealand's Olympic and Commonwealth Games teams - Dave "Haka" Currie - as the manager of the Black Caps. More of Mr Currie and his position on disclosure later.

The two incidents were Jesse Ryder's disciplining over getting out in a match against Sri Lanka and the well-meaning but naive causing of a riot in India by two other Black Caps, Aaron Redmond and Neil Broom, when they were in Chennai as part of the New Zealand A team tour back in August.

The New Zealand Herald broke the story of Ryder earning disciplinary action (he was fined) after he smashed a chair with his bat. When Currie told him off, Ryder said: ""F*** off, you stupid old ****."

We know this only because NZC made it public once the Herald had broken the story. Note the subtle distinction. World carries on - silence. Someone finds out - spill the beans.

If you were still thinking this is no big deal, the Sunday Star-Times took the not unreasonable step of talking to NZC chief executive Justin Vaughan and reminding him that he'd said publicly last year that Ryder was on his "last chance" after the infamous drunken incident in a Christchurch bar where our Jesse came second in a fight with a window.

Ryder is enormously talented. If Vaughan had carried through with his threat, Ryder's contract would have been torn up - making it quite difficult for him to open the batting.

So they stayed as quiet as a nun's fart; as quiet as Hone Harawira on the subject of Paris; or as quiet as Rodney Hide on perk-busting 2010. Take your pick.

What followed then was the language of those caught in a cover-up.

"When we said that, it was in relation to a particularly serious incident where he did himself harm by carrying on like an idiot," said Vaughan, adding that the latest incident did not fall into that 'serious' category. "Jesse is still a work in progress and we didn't want to raise the last incident because there seemed no point in publicising that," he told the SS-T.

No point at all. No point in living up to your word. Nor in saying stuff like "last chance" to begin with, especially if you didn't mean it but it sounded good.

"Every sporting code has these types of individuals who are enormously talented yet have other issues," said Vaughan. "We're still ... getting the best out of Jesse Ryder but it's Jesse who has to understand that more than anyone."

What Ryder and every Black Cap will now understand is that it's permissible to act like a crazed bogan if you're talented enough. They will also understand that, if a CEO of NZC says you're on your last chance, he means they'll relent if it's not convenient.

Currie, manager since late last summer, rubbished the Herald regarding the notion that the story was "any great event. I don't know that it was in-house, or secret," he said. "All the team knew about it, all the support staff knew about it and half the people at the ground knew. I don't get the drama. Clearly it happened, we dealt with it and it's gone."

So that's all right, then. But, hey, if it was no great drama, why didn't NZC tell us? Guess we know the answer to that one already.

Currie was the chef de mission at the Melbourne Commonwealth Games in 2006 - when New Zealand cyclist Liz Williams was forced to partially undress in the back of a taxi and was urinated on by two male cyclists after a drunken night out.

Currie headed a press conference on the incident - but only after the story broke in the Melbourne Herald Sun, where Currie was quoted as saying: "I wouldn't say it was an incident. There hasn't been an incident. She has not made a [police] complaint."

He later said there had been an incident but played matters down, saying that the cyclists had no intention of undressing Williams and urinating on her.

Williams and her family differed and, in a Herald on Sunday exclusive, said she hadn't made a police complaint only because she didn't want her team-mates to go to prison. They talked because of the officials' use of the word "high jinks" and "non-event", making it seem as though Williams had been a willing participant and that she wasn't taking it seriously. Way to play it down.

Broom and Redmond, apparently fortified by drink, broke curfew and drunkenly handed out bank notes to passers-by in Chennai, causing the riot. It is perfectly clear that the pair had genuine, if misguided motives - and that's what makes it so daft that NZC hushed that one up.

"... There were no arrests, there was nothing untoward, they breach rules from time to time and we hold them to account," said Vaughan. "They know it's wrong and won't do it again. I'm not prepared to disclose the fine - that's NZC policy. If this was a big deal, like really significant, I can understand ... but this is a minor indiscretion ..."

So minor, no one said anything about it; even though it occurred in a country linked with poor security and the potential for terrorism; and even though New Zealand cricket has had quite enough of these kind of stories lately, suggesting that those in charge can't control their charges.

Years ago, in a long career in public relations, people used to pay me quite a large amount of money for advice on matters such as these.

We used to counsel chief executives and even heads of state that, if anything went wrong, the best thing to do was to make a clean breast of it; stand up straight; confirm the error; look people in the eye; and tell them how you're going to fix it - and then fix it.

Works a treat. It's honest and people respect you for it. It also takes care of the essential equation - no matter how bad the incident, it won't be anywhere near as bad as the cover-up, once discovered.

Looks like NZC are still learning the lesson.