Paul Lewis: It's risk management

Ross Taylor. Photo / Christine Cornege

The telephone rang at Guinness World Records headquarters. The researcher listened intently.

"What's that? Six months to elect an international cricket captain? Well, yes, I'd say that probably would be a world record.

"Pardon? New Zealand has three world-class players, one of whom was standing down as captain and the other two were vying for the post. I see... So you set the other two against each other in a very public contest - and then chose the one that the former captain didn't back."

The researcher put down the re-application form from the woman who claimed every year to have The World's Strongest Vagina.

This sounded more promising.

Before you scoff too hard, I swear it's true. Google it. It's on YouTube too. She is a 42-year-old Russian woman who claims to have trained her, uh, core muscles to pick up heavy weights using only her inner self.

She inserts a glass ball, grips it and, on the string attached to the ball, hangs another glass ball of at least 14kg and lifts it.

If the question why has rocketed into your head, as it did mine, the answer is apparently not that there isn't much to do in Russia.

The woman says training like this enables a woman to give herself and her man "unforgettable pleasure". So.. that's all right then; though I can think of precious few men who'd want to risk it in case their middle stump emerged looking like a bookmark.

The question why also pertains to the excruciatingly drawn-out process of the selection of Ross Taylor as Black Caps captain.

Back in January, the Herald on Sunday's Andrew Alderson was writing that Taylor was favoured for the post over Brendon McCullum.

Small wonder coach John Wright, in greeting the appointment, felt compelled to say: "In future, I would hope that whatever processes are embarked on in reaching these decisions are probably a bit more rapid than they have been in this case. We are in a sporting, competitive environment and it's about making decisions as quickly as possible, then getting on with things."

So why has it taken so long? New Zealand Cricket has been putting its house in order after the twin debacles of the Andy Moles regime and outgoing captain Daniel Vettori's brief and unsuccessful tenure as skipper-selector-coach-chief cook and bottlewasher. They brought in Wright as coach, a move universally admired, and have cleaned out the selection stables.

Wright and the yet-to-be-named national selection manager will control selection, thus ending the rather weird situation where the selectors could pull rank; lumbering Wright with individuals he may have thought should not have been there.

This all happened after another new appointment - Australia's John Buchanan as director of cricket. Buchanan and NZC then came up with the national selection manager idea which gives Wright power as a selector-coach.

So there is some tortured, corporate logic in delaying the choice of captain until all those "building blocks" were in place; so all the flywheels of New Zealand cricket were turning the crankshaft of performance in the same direction.

There's just a couple of teensy things. Captaining an international cricket team is no walk in the park. Decisions have to be made on the spot; man management is both ongoing and of the moment; mental strength is needed for tactics and changes in same.

What Taylor has been shown so far by NZC in his very selection is that delay, obfuscation and building a consensus is the stuff of leadership. I have this uncomfortable mental image of him wrestling with a cricket decision and heading out the gates of the stadium to poll puzzled old darlings in the street.

Why not have the cojones to bite the bullet and name Taylor after the World Cup? Building a team around a highly public race involving the three world-class players on the team is a risky strategy.

Wright has experience in pulling together the egos and clashing characters of a side as volatile as India - but no-one really knows how the prolonged Presidential-style election race will damage the Black Caps.

It could create divisions in the team and maybe even between Taylor and McCullum - but, never mind, we'll force the loser to come out with that ringingly insincere-sounding tactic: a vote of confidence in the victor.

For the cynical, the choice of Taylor is underlined by the fact McCullum can be a feisty customer with opinions which he is unafraid to express. He might have been more of a handful for the chain of command than Taylor, who looks a more amenable character; perhaps more likely to abide by the party line.

But cricket is a political game. Cricket teams contain highly political animals.

The batsman who wants to open; the into-the-wind bowler who wants to run in downwind; the team member who believes one of their number shouldn't be there - who favours a provincial team-mate instead; the senior player who thinks the captain is tactically weak or too conservative; the opener who believes his partner is a flashy headline-seeker who bats for his own purposes as opposed to building healthy opening stands for the good of the team ... Cricket can be the most backbiting sport of all.

That's the environment in which the corporate hoo-ha, alive in many branches of New Zealand sport these days, was put to work - trust in the integrity of the process; use it to align the individuals; bring them together under the banner of a new beginning.

Great, if it works. If the scuttlebutt is correct, the team were divided about the choice of skipper. Vettori, it is said (and never denied), preferred McCullum.

Why even ask them? Those who opted for the other bloke will be feeling that they wasted their time; that their opinion didn't much matter. Human nature being what it is, they will look for failings in the successor.

Wright, Taylor and the Black Caps will probably prevail - although they have some tough opponents (Australia and South Africa) coming up after the home and away nonsense with Zimbabwe, about whose cricket no one cares. But it is a risk; a daft way to do it.

Almost as daft as the woman who wants to be known as The World's Strongest Vagina. Still, at least she has balls...