KEY POINTS:
New Zealand Cricket could be forced into the embarrassing situation of having to go
back to the market if New South Wales coach Matthew Mott declines the opportunity to replace John Bracewell.
The consensus is Northern Districts coach Andy Moles is next in line to replace John Bracewell but, given that NZC's shortlist originally contained five of whom two, South Africans Mickey Arthur and Graham Ford, have already pulled out, you are starting to get into default territory.
With NZC chief executive Justin Vaughan having said previously that this restructure was all about getting the right people, no matter how long it took, there is every chance that NZC will re-advertise the position should Mott not accept.
There should also be some navel-gazing as to why the position no longer appears to be as attractive as it was when first put to the market, with Arthur and Ford in particular appealing as outstanding candidates.
With a young captain, some promising players, a good one-day international record and a test team that can only improve, you would have thought it was an excellent proposition for an ambitious coach.
Questions have to be asked why they haven't be able to get the preferred candidates `over the line' as yet.
The `default option' description is probably unfair to Moles, an Englishman who has impressed during his time at Northern Districts.
ND chief executive David Cooper is a big supporter of the 47-year-old former Warwickshire opener and it is understood he has some well-placed supporters within the NZC high-performance set-up too.
There are doubts too, said a source, about how Moles would handle the furnace of international cricket but Mott is also untested in that arena.
Moles' international experience is limited to short stints at Kenya and Scotland.
In the latter role he fell victim to `player power' with senior Scotland players, however, that incident probably said more about Scotland's senior players than it did about Moles.
Mott has thrown a scare into NZC by publicly expressing his doubt about taking the job. One of things weighing on his mind is the fact wife Taryn has just given birth to the couple's first child, Jai.
"I'm definitely keeping my options open. I'll be brutally honest, it's about a 50-50 split [between taking the job or staying with NSW] at the moment," he told NZPA.
"I definitely haven't cooled on the idea. It's just ongoing, a process I
want to get right and think of things objectively and come up with the
best outcome."
NSW chief executive Dave Gilbert has tabled an improved two-year
deal to Mott and has said he wants the 35-year-old to stay while at the
same time acknowledging international opportunities do not come along every day.
It seems the only people not willing to talk about the situation is the prospective employer.
Vaughan said that while there was ongoing public interest in the new appointment, New Zealand Cricket's priority was to focus on the current Australian tour.
In a statement released by NZC in response to enquiries, Vaughan said: "We're continuing to work through an appointment process with more than one top-flight candidate.
"However it's important that for now we focus our attention and energy on the test series against Australia starting [this] week."
In the increasingly likely event that Mott turns NZC down, another scenario could see somebody like acting high-performance manager John Wright take the side in a caretaker role until the right candidate is found.
However, with such a busy schedule in place over the next two
years, there should be a sense of urgency creeping through NZC's Christchurch corridors.
