48 Hours:Credibility at risk as cricket strike drags on

It was not so much the action from our rugby players as the inaction from our cricketers which made the past 48 hours such a strange time for New Zealand sport.

As rugby's domestic competition was reaching the climax of the season, provincial cricketers were continuing with their tiresome strike-for-cash routine, refusing contact with coaches or local administrations.

It might be that their tongue-tied agent, the New Zealand Cricket Players' Association, will have used the weekend to mull over their seemingly hopeless position.

But it's difficult to imagine them escaping with their credibility intact.

At a time when domestic players would usually be taking every opportunity to prepare for the representative season, they have instead been led down the garden path by an organisation that appears to have a problem with reality.

That certainly was the case when the players' association naively suggested that New Zealand Cricket had broken the bargaining protocol by taking the matter into the public domain, as if the public wouldn't have noticed anyway.

From the time the association revealed the absurdity of its pay claim (a 60 per cent, or $2.8m increase), its operation has not only appeared poorly-researched but also amateurish, as evidenced last week by its use of the Auckland Rugby Union's letterhead.



It seemed to base its pay claim on the remarkably short-sighted theory that NZC was about to receive a windfall from the India series and the World Cup, and could therefore afford to toss more cash at the players.

As it happens, the NZC stands to rake in about $41 million next year, but the forecasts for the following three years are $14.7 million, $17 million and $12.2 million, or an average over the four-year period of about $21 million.

Translated, that means NZC would have been forced to swap a projected all-square result at the end of the four-year period for a $14 million loss.

But if there is one silver lining to this entire issue, it's the suggestion that the players' action might force NZC and Sky Television to abandon this season's Max competition, the 20-over slogathon which pays well for players but leaves the cricket public cold.

Already the players' association has started making noises about not wanting to jeopardise the tournament, ostensibly because it doesn't want to damage cricket, but more likely because it doesn't want to damage the players' wallets.

Ironically, its latest media statement included the suggestion that NZC should consult immediately if any sponsors were considering withdrawing their funding, "so that we can explore any options." Not to put too fine a point on it, but what about the option of playing?

As it is, most test-playing nations are either fine-tuning their preparations or are already engaged in heavy-duty contests around the world, giving them a distinct advantage in the lead up to next year's World Cup.

Sobering, isn't it, that at a time when India's stars are warming up against the West Indies for this summer's series against New Zealand, our top players are lounging about and wondering why their laundry hasn't been collected.

Hopefully, they will have used the past 48 hours to good effect, possibly imagining the pressure they will come under when the strike eventually ends and they have to prove their worth to the New Zealand public all over again.

And possibly they would have even taken the time to indulge in a spot of reading, in which case they couldn't have done worse than an old fable from about 2500 years ago.

It was Aesop who wrote, "Thinking to get at once all the gold the goose could give, he killed it and opened it, only to find - nothing."