NZC to organise former captains' meet

New Zealand Cricket (NZC) is organising a meeting of its former captains in the New Year in order "to open better lines of communication" regarding the development of the sport in the country. The move came after several players had criticised the board for its handling of the captaincy issue, and for not accepting their help in taking New Zealand forward.

"Former captains will be invited to attend the meeting which is intended to be an annual event designed to provide quality input from both the former captains and the players who were part of their era in cricket," NZC said in a statement. "Creating a vehicle for former captains and players to directly communicate their ideas and observations to NZC is complimented by the current constitutional review process that the board has committed to in the early part of next year."

Martin Crowe, Dion Nash, Simon Doull, Craig McMillan and John Parker were some of the former New Zealand players who had criticised the board, saying it had turned down their offers.

NZC chief executive David White also said it was "time to draw a line" under the Ross Taylor captaincy controversy. "We've already acknowledged mistakes were made on this issue and we have learned from those mistakes," he said. "Team management has given an undertaking to improve communication and to ensure nothing similar occurs again. The board and management of NZC make that same commitment.

"NZC believes it now serves no useful purpose to further rake over the events of the captaincy change. We now need to focus on the tour of South Africa. This is going to be a challenging tour against one of the leading teams in the world, so it is important that the team now focuses and prepares to ensure it is competitive in this series."

New Zealand begin their tour of South Africa with a Twenty20 international in Durban on December 21.