Cricket: It's logical, says Turner

Daryl Tuffey. Photo / Greg Bowker

Convener of selectors Glenn Turner has admitted there are flaws in the central contracts system after five players who do not have retainers from New Zealand Cricket were selected for the tour to Sri Lanka.

However, Turner defended the selections themselves, saying they were picked on logic, not whimsy.

When New Zealand Cricket last week picked two 15-man squads - a test squad and a one-day/Twenty20 squad - to tour Sri Lanka, the teams were greeted with a great deal of scepticism as they did not appear to marry well with the list of 20 contracted players announced the week previously.

Daryl Tuffey, Reece Young and Craig Cumming were selected from outside the contracted list for the test segment of the tour, while Nathan McCullum made the cut for the short-format squad, with Peter McGlashan added for the Twenty20 internationals only.

None of these players was among the 20 who received retainers from NZC, while Brent Arnel and James Franklin received retainers but didn't make the squad for either tour.

Turner acknowledged there were faults in the contract system that have been highlighted by the squads named to tour Sri Lanka.

"You can argue that the system is flawed. It has obviously worked for a period but you have three solid forms of the game now, not two," Turner said.

In the past, points were used to determine the top players and the top 20 retainers, using two lists. The top 25 test players were on one list, the top 25 one-day players were on the other. Now Twenty20 is being factored into what was previously the one-day list to form a "short-form cricket" list.

Points are allocated to each player on the lists. The lowest-ranked cricketer gets one point; the highest-ranked, 25 points. Test players are given a special weighting - their points are multiplied by 1.25.

The top 20 point-scorers are then offered the NZC central contracts.

Turner revealed he was working on a new system that would give points for each form of the game and weight them according to the programme for the forthcoming year.

"What I've noticed is that you could, let's say, be ranked 11th on the test list which would give you 18.75 points. If you don't get any points in the ranking for limited overs cricket, that 18.75 points would put you 29th on the overall list.

"All of a sudden people see somebody who is playing test cricket who doesn't have a contract - who is not even close to a contract - and they think how could that possibly be?

"The other example is that if you got 16th in both forms of the game, you would end up this year with a contract 15th on the list, which gives you a decent retainer [$90,000] and yet you're 16th in line when it comes to 15-man squads. So you're not selected in either form and yet you've got a contract."

Tuffey missed out on a contract yet is going to Sri Lanka; Arnel received one and is not. Then there's Gareth Hopkins who got a contract and yet there are two other keepers who are just as likely, possibly more likely, to get game time in Young and McGlashan.

"That's a very good example," Turner said. "I know people say we've got three back-up keepers and shake their heads and say 'how can only one have a contract?' Ideally, under a different system - where you were giving contracts for each form of the game - all three would have got some money and that would have been a lot fairer.

"We have Reece Young doing the tests because we feel he is the next best gloveman; the next best gloveman after him, who also bats pretty damn well in both forms, is Hopkins; then you have McGlashan who can keep in Twenty20s but is valued more as a batting improviser in that form of the game."

Turner explained that Arnel's absence, in favour of Tuffey, was because they were in all likelihood going to play two frontline seamers - Chris Martin and Iain O'Brien, two spinners and use Jacob Oram and Jesse Ryder in the third and fourth seamer roles. Arnel would be better served getting some overs in on the "A" tour to India, while Tuffey was the perfect back-up, having experienced Sri Lankan conditions.

"Do you want a newcomer to be making his debut under Sri Lankan conditions? The answer is 'no', if you can avoid it. So selection is not so cut and dried," Turner said.

For all the apparent anomalies, the players' association (who worked hard to put a central contracts system in place) believes the system is still robust. Heath Mills, the manager of that body, said he expected there to be "semantic" changes only when the present contract agreement ran out next year.

"There might be some tweaking but I can't see any wholesale changes. We have to figure out how to factor Twenty20 into the equation but at the same time it is important we still put our focus on the longer form of the game. That's the form of the game the players want to see protected."

While tests are better remunerated in terms of match fees - $7325 against $3175 and $2075 - this is nothing compared to some of the money being splashed about at the ICC one-day and Twenty20 tournaments and the Indian Premier League.

If New Zealand had qualified for the semifinals at the recent World T20 tournament in England, they would have received approximately $100,000 each.

Is it any wonder several players have voiced doubts about their test futures while committing eagerly to Twenty20 contracts?

"One-point-two-five. Is that enough of a weighting towards tests? It's a good question," Mills said.