an initiative from NZ Cricket id like to see... ask Ross to pull out of the IPL... have about 3 or 4 NZ winters playing county cricket instead... NZ Cricket can pay the difference between his county deal and his IPL contract...
i reckon he would benefit greatly by having a couple of years on the county scene... learning how to become a REAL pro.
How much can Taylor earn playing county cricket? $200,000? So, you think NZC, which I would imagine looking at its sparse crowds, would be doing well to post minimal losses could lump up with an extra $800,000??? I like the idea, and I agree with the concept, however I don't think it's financially plausible.
Uhhh how about this for a reason like I already stated, none of those players are a)better then who is already in there or b) good enough for international cricket full stop. Pretty simple really.
Pretty much. And that's the real problem, isn't it? Having 6 first class teams (remember, Australia which has five times our population also works off a 6 team concept) completely waters down the second tier strength because fringe players play against mediocre players who in most cricket nations would be nowhere near first class cricket. It's annoying watching 120k/h fat trundlers roll their arm over and do ok, and then to see the likes of Tim McIntosh forge a goodish first class record only to find out when he hits the top level that he has absolutely no stability in his defence and can barely play a ball off the back foot.
You are right, there simply is not the talent to put any pressure on McCullum, Vettori, Ryder, Taylor, probably even Guptill, possibly even Martin. McCullum, Ryder and Taylor are guys who could be extremely good international talents. But they're never pushed to hold their spots.
I'd like to do away with the current first class system... I'd go back to a conference system. Auckland/ND (Northern), CD/Wellington (Central), Otago/Canterbury (Southern). To make a season, invite an A team or have an NZ U22 team as the fourth unit based out of an academy city. CD/ND were brought in in the 50s because transportation was cumbersome still and it meant that provincial players couldn't commute to the bigger centres, plus, they weren't professional so it meant a lot of players were being missed out on. Nowadays with modern technology, strategically that is no longer the case. On top of that, the first class systems are massive costs to the NZC bottom line, so effectively removing one meaningless average game per round of competition would reduce a lot of overheads and help produce far tougher first class conditions to test players out on, which should remove the roly poly average first class cricketer that gives the freebie meat pies for average talent to dine out on.
