Cricket: Greatbatch - We lacked mental hardness

Mental hardness, or an apparent lack of it, was a key part of New Zealand's 5-0 ODI drubbing by India, according to coach Mark Greatbatch.

New Zealand's performances got worse as the series progressed, the team finding a range of ways to lose.

Greatbatch was bitterly disappointed at the manner in which the tour fortunes plunged the longer it went, having started encouragingly with draws in the first two tests. From there they were walloped in the third test at Nagpur and outplayed in the ODI series.

"The tour started pretty positively. We'd got ourselves into a position to perform better. Then to end like that was not a great feeling. It was pretty disappointing and embarrassing to an extent," Greatbatch said last night.

Greatbatch, who was involved in the first of a series of debriefs on the tour and immediate future plans surrounding the organisation of the national side in Auckland yesterday, put the problems down to players' inability to make good decisions consistently over a sustained period.

"The decision-making that these guys have to make - along with the opposition - every ball, batting, bowling or fielding, we did it in pockets," he said. "You can have the odd bad period, but you can't have continued bad phases in a game, whether it's losing wickets early or starting badly with the ball.

"We tended to have a cross-section of the above. It's mismanagement of the mental game."

One of the spinoffs from that, he believed, was the physical actions that followed.

"I've always been a big believer that when you're not mentally right, your body doesn't function the way you want it to. You probably see the physical side of a shot being played, but it's produced by a mind not quite being clear."

He singled out Wellington allrounder James Franklin as one player who got his game together. Once brought in for the last three ODIs, lefthander Franklin responded with 72 not out and a 69-ball unbeaten 98, which should earn him a spot in the World Cup squad named on January 19.

"He was exceptional, made a lot of good decisions, looked calm and got his reward. Other players didn't play as consistently well mentally for long enough."

Greatbatch admitted players' spirits took a dent as the run of defeats mounted. By the time of the fifth beating in Chennai last Friday night, New Zealand had lost 11 straight ODIs, all in the sub-continent, hardly an ideal lead-in to a World Cup to be hosted by India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.

Greatbatch had no issue with the effort the players put in.

"When you're losing eight, nine, 10 in a row you try to relax things, you want them to play their natural game," he said. "You don't want to complicate things too much. I don't think it was a lack of trying."

Greatbatch was reluctant to talk about the content of yesterday's meeting, which is understood to have also involved NZC's performance director Roger Mortimer, chief executive Justin Vaughan, captain Dan Vettori and two former internationals, Martin Crowe and Stephen Boock, who are part of the newly-formed NZC cricket committee to advise the national body's board.