Dylan Cleaver: Henry has promising future in cricket

Graham Henry looks on during a New Zealand All Blacks training session. Photo / Getty Images

Barring an unforseen, apocalyptic occurrence, this will be the last international rugby match Graham Henry will coach on this side of the equator.

More than once on this tour he has talked about the "touch of madness" that has seen him coach 130 test matches for 100 wins.

The madness is set to end in 12 tests' time, including tomorrow morning's encounter with Wales. All going to script, he will win the last seven of his matches in succession before hitting the celebrity speaking circuit and mulling over offers of rugby directorships at clubs with more dollars than sense.

Or not.

There's a much larger, more challenging job perfectly set up for him - coach of the national cricket side.

Seriously.

There are just two things standing in the way of this becoming a reality - age and the fact that he's not a cricket coach - so let's address them first.

Henry will be 65 when the World Cup ends next October. Although he's quite chipper for a sexagenarian, you could understand why a clifftop pad overlooking the Waitemata is more appealing than a two-month trawl through the subcontinent.

That is a hard sell, but one that could be made.

He is not a cricket coach, that much is fact, but guess what: we've had a few of them in the past 20 years and some of them have been useless.

It's ridiculous to suggest he will be in the nets telling Brendon McCullum how to play the ball with soft hands past point, but do you really think he tells Dan Carter how to grip the ball when he's passing?

Technical expertise is almost irrelevant for the task Henry would be employed for; there are plenty of specialists covering reverse swing, fielding drills and back-foot defence.

Alongside those two cons, there is a bigger and more persuasive list of pros.

Henry is not ready for a Zimmer frame. Sure, he could pick up a nice little sinecure in rugby, but after the All Blacks there is only inferiority?

He knows cricket, he loves cricket and has played the game to a high level (if not with startling success). This is probably the least compelling of the pros, but it is still important.

Henry would take to the task with a degree of passion at the very least.

He's an educator by trade and has Henry's

future

successfully taken learnings from that profession into coaching. He knows what young men are thinking before they do.

He doesn't necessarily set boundaries, but he is big on developing personal responsibility, something our cricketers as a whole have never embraced.

He is a strategist and an analyst. That is his technical strength. Cricket is a game of strategy and analysis.

He surrounds himself with people he trusts and admires, people who contribute to making the environment more conducive to winning. He also has a ruthless streak. If something or someone is deemed surplus, they will be discarded.

He has an ego. All coaches do. The thought of being wanted by another sport that has as many cultural and historical ties to New Zealand as cricket has would appeal to him.

But most of all, he knows how to win and he knows how to set up systems that make winning easier. His 77 per cent win rate, 86 per cent as All Black coach, is phenomenal in the professional era. He's not going to achieve that with cricket, but he could set up the systems that would give his successors a better chance than what New Zealand is mired in at the moment.

How long have we been saying we want our cricketers to be more like the All Blacks? So what exactly is there to lose?

Graham, don't hang up when NZC calls. Taking on this job would require more than a touch of madness. You'd be perfect.