Cricket: Lack of class players exposed

By Richard Boock

WELLINGTON - Assuming they can find their way to the Basin Reserve today, the New Zealand cricketers face far more questions than just those concerning their running between the wickets.

The abiding memory of India's last-over win at Napier on Tuesday night remains the demented running of the New Zealand batsmen, a Keystone Kops performance which resulted in a quick chat yesterday, and presumably a request that Matt Horne wear a bell around his neck like a bell-wether in future.

By rights, a madcap effort of those proportions should have ended in a humiliating loss and compulsory eye and hearing tests for all the batsmen.

The wonder was that New Zealand were almost able to prevent India from squaring the Bank of New Zealand series 1-1.

And in the end, the closeness of that finish and the Kiwis' running between the wickets worked to disguise what might be considered a common problem for New Zealand teams over the past five or six years.

Much has been made of the manner in which this particular side have matured and come of age, a development epitomised by the fighting qualities of players such as Dion Nash, Craig McMillan, Chris Cairns and Daniel Vettori, and demonstrated during the test series against India.

It might be, however, that the fact the New Zealand selectors had a fully fit contingent from which to pick - including the injury-prone Simon Doull, Nash and Cairns - was the biggest difference between previous national teams and this summer's model.

The problem last season and for what seemed an eternity beforehand, was that New Zealand lacked any depth of genuine test and one-day standard cricketers, and struggled to compete without their top line-up.

The suspicion now is that nothing much has changed.

With Nathan Astle and Stephen Fleming missing through injury, New Zealand's batting line-up appears far more fragile and unsettled than a fortnight ago and the concern for the selectors, with the World Cup less than six months out, is that they have very few back-up options.

Batsmen such as Roger Twose and Bryan Young would naturally want to contest that suggestion, and they could choose no better place to make their point than in the middle of a packed Basin Reserve today.

Both were victims of Horne's coming-ready-or-not approach at Napier, something which must have proved particularly galling as they were both in recall mode and both playing for their international careers.

New Zealand coach Steve Rixon said yesterday that the team's approach to their running between the wickets would remain aggressive, and that he would not attempt to curb the hard-running intentions of the batsmen.

"We're not going to run more conservatively," said Rixon, who noted that most of the problems were at the "non-danger" end. "But there's a difference between running aggressively and taking unnecessary risks."