New Zealand batsmen must be 'accountable' - Wright

John Wright, the outgoing New Zealand coach, has signed off from his role with the team with stern words for its batsmen. The New Zealand batsmen, Wright said, have to be "accountable" for their on-field actions.

"You have to have self-responsibility and be accountable for your actions in the middle," Wright was quoted as saying by Fairfax NZ News. "You just can't come off [after being dismissed] and wave it away with phrases like 'that's the way I play' and 'I didn't quite execute'.

"You have to be very brutal in your self-analysis and very honest. It's [also] very helpful if your team-mates are brutally honest with you and if you play an inappropriate shot at any stage, then you know that if you go back into that dressing room you're going to not exactly get a welcome."

The tour of the Caribbean was Wright's final assignment with New Zealand, in which they were blanked 0-2 in the Twenty20 and Test series' and lost the ODI series 1-4. In the one-dayers, none of the New Zealand batsmen aggregated 200 runs, while in the Tests, none of the batsmen, apart from Martin Guptill, touched 130 overall. In what could have been the most embarrassing result of the tour, however, the batsmen struggled in the warm-up game prior to the Tests, against the WICB President's XI, before narrowly avoiding an innings defeat.

Wright had decided not to extend his coaching contract following differences with New Zealand's director of cricket, John Buchanan. Mike Hesson, who previously coached domestic side Otago and Kenya, takes over as coach for New Zealand's next assignment - the tour of India that begins on August 23 - and Wright said he hoped Hesson would get "what he needs" to help lift New Zealand.

Wright thanked the fans for their support during his stint. "It has been an incredible privilege for me to coach my country and I've had fantastic support from the cricketing public," he said. "I very much appreciate that."