KEY POINTS:
Departing fast bowler Shane Bond, who had his international career curtailed over a contract stoush, looks certain to be in England this winter - but it won't be with the Black Caps.
Bond is on the verge of signing a one-year deal with county side Worcestershire, meaning he will be in England at the same time as the national squad. But because he signed a lucrative three-year deal with the rebel Indian Cricket League, he won't be available for New Zealand duty.
When contacted yesterday, Bond said he "hadn't decided yet" whether to take up the offer but a source said it was all but a done deal.
Worcestershire has somewhat of a tradition of signing New Zealanders, with Glenn Turner the most notable, scoring the majority of his 103 first-class centuries for the Midlands county.
In separate columns in the English media, former England skipper Mike Atherton and Shane Warne have both denounced the decision to ban Bond from international cricket as "short-sighted" and "self-defeating".
Meanwhile, Bond himself has called for an overhaul of New Zealand's domestic game, believing a complete overhaul is needed for the Black Caps to be truly competitive at test level. Ironically, he is calling for less two-innings cricket to be played at schoolboy and club level. His reasoning is sound, however.
Bond said trying to squeeze two-innings games into two days leads to a mixture of ridiculous slogging and farcical declarations to try to manufacture results, rather than batsmen learning how to bat time and bowlers having to earn wickets - ideal preparation for test cricket.
Bond has played more club cricket than most internationals as he has rehabilitated from injuries. "I've played in two-day club games where we've batted well through a session-and-a-half and then all the talk is about when we're going to declare. It's ridiculous. You get batsmen playing million dollar shots before they're set, so they never learn to bat time."
Spinners are probably worst affected.
"Most of the time, they're only used to encourage the slog," Bond said.
That affects their ability to learn how to bowl with attacking intent. New Zealand spinners tend to be finger spinners who bowl flatter and more defensively than in Australia, where they are encouraged to give it a rip.
Bond said Australians tended to play far less multi-innings cricket at lower levels and their system gave rise to batsmen who learned the benefits of batting for long periods and bowlers who had to attack and work hard for their wickets.
The solution was relatively simple but it would take every minor association in the country to buy into it. Even in two-day competitions, he advocates making the points on offer so skewed in favour of first innings points that seeking outright victory is an afterthought.
Another fundamental change that had to be made, according to Bond, was for young players to play on good artificial wickets, not just mats stretched across rolled dirt. "That's the only way they're going to learn how to play the bouncing ball."
