KEY POINTS:
One of the most telling features of the beginning of the Black Caps' tour of England was the opening press conference. There was no Daniel Vettori or Brendon McCullum, two of five still playing in the cash-rich, bash-and-clap IPL Twenty20.
Shorn of these two plus Kyle Mills, Ross Taylor and Jacob Oram, the New Zealanders put up acting captain Jamie Who. Sorry, Jamie How. But at least one senior British cricket scribe was heard stage whispering: "Is that How?"
Indeed. Is that how cricket wants to run its tours these days?
No one can begrudge players their right to make mountains of cash. That is not the core of this query. But playing for your country and test cricket, in particular, is the pinnacle of the game. Turning up to a tour of England without your captain and your vice-captain and mouthing platitudes about the modern environment just doesn't cut it.
Coach John Bracewell said when asked about the strange start to the tour: "It is never ideal to start a tour without your captain or vice-captain, but that is the reality of the landscape we live in.
" The reality is we have to adapt quite quickly to the comings and goings, but we have had to do that anyway with test and one-day parts of tours. For us, it is ideal to have these tournaments placed in the ICC's Future Tours Programme. Then we do not run the risk of having some players there and others not there. It prevents the players having that moral decision of money or country. It is a pretty tough question."
Yes, it is. And there is something vaguely distasteful about five main members of the party turning up late, pockets bulging, while the rest of the party pretends they are getting on with things.
Even acknowledging Bracewell's point - that this is all beyond the powers of New Zealand Cricket and that the Twenty20 cobblers needs to be arranged so it doesn't interfere with the fabric of the game - there is no question the new world puts more pressure on our cricketers.
In addition to taking on an England side who (albeit narrowly) beat them at home and who may be strengthened with the likes of Andrew Flintoff, the Black Caps are without Stephen Fleming, all the other recent retirees and those who have opted to roll in the cash of India, as Scrooge McDuck used to do in his bank vault.
The cynical might suggest the 'reality of the situation' is that our cricketers may not quite be in the mindspace where they give their all because, in 'the reality of the situation', test cricket just isn't as important as the new God, Twenty20.
So the Black Caps, distracted by the IPL and the sub-conscious relaxation of knowing their real motivation lies in flashy pyjamas in India, could fall to an ignominious defeat, especially as skipper Dan Vettori's preparation has been further affected by a hand injury.
That, of course, doesn't acknowledge the blood-at-boiling-point fight Bracewell displayed as a player and which the Black Caps will need to be competitive in England.
Jacob Oram, for one, has talked positively, saying he has plenty of time to snap into test mode and there is no lingering disaffection between the haves with IPL riches and those who have not.
We'll see. Those assurances fall easily from the lips of one who has. Nothing divides faster than money, particularly when wives and girlfriends also get involved and the inevitable 'me too' syndrome arrives.
These are new pressures for the Black Caps. Their primary weapon these days is playing as a team but, if it all turns to custard, it could well be a case of oh dear, how sad, never mind... let's get back to the dollars.
The sad part is that New Zealand is essentially powerless. As is the ICC, as evidenced by the recent sacking of CEO Malcolm Speed over the vexed issue of Zimbabwe.
The game's power brokers have assumed a position of rampant factionalism, black vs white, where Zimbabwe's excesses as a cricket nation, tied to Robert Mugabe's evil regime, are smoothed over in favour of vote-gathering so that India's BCCI can become the de facto ICC of world cricket.
As that power base shifts, so it is unlikely too many concessions will be made for minnows like New Zealand. If the Twenty20 juggernaut rolls on, scenes like the Black Caps - and other countries - starting major tours without major players could become more common.
Sir Richard Hadlee chimed in this week with his thoughts that the five should not have been allowed to arrive late in England: ". . . the global game has to survive and not be compromised. There needs to be a total understanding that once international commitments are there either you are a part of it or not.".
I find it hard to imagine All Blacks going to the coach, saying: 'I'm just popping over there to make some more money, boss. You'll be all right if I'm a couple of weeks late for that tour of South Africa, won't you?' I wonder what Graham Henry, for example, might make of that. Or Grizz Wyllie.
Or, to take another example, just imagine Alex Ferguson's reaction if a Manchester United player said the same thing to him. There'd be a lot of words that rhymed with truck and punt and a player who would seldom, if ever, be seen in the red strip again.
Not, it seems, in cricket. That's sad. And dangerous.
