Building team spirit from odd jobs

Ian Butler looks after the transport. He makes sure all the vans are ready in time for the team to leave.

Grant Elliott makes sure that when the team is done with the dressing rooms, with the nets, with the practice grounds, that they leave behind a clean place.

Jesse Ryder decides what music will be played; nobody can take the music player away from him.

Martin Guptill makes sure he carries the New Zealand flag with him, to dressing rooms, to team meetings. He makes sure the flag is up when the New Zealand team meets, and is folded and taken back when the meeting is over.

Jacob Oram allocates the complimentary tickets among the players.

Some of these odd jobs can be mundane (Ross Taylor wrote of how he kept forgetting the New Zealand flag in his room in England), exciting (the music), a privilege (the ticket allocation), and highly responsible (like managing tour allowances; O’Brien remembers 1.25 million takas lying on his bed when in Bangladesh). But the New Zealand team spread these tasks among the players, and a player is allocated different job over different series. Taylor wrote of how Peter Fulton’s music sense didn’t go down well with the team in England; they seem quite happy with Ryder now.

This is an interesting team-building exercise, not an event but a continuous process. It creates a sense of responsibility, and makes things easier for everyone around. So who allocates these duties? As of now, Dave Currie, who has worked with New Zealand teams for the Olympics in 2004 and 2008, and the Commonwealth Games in 2002 and 2006. He was in Delhi to inspect the preparations for the 2010 Commonwealth Games when he was made the manager of the cricket team. “They weren’t aware that I had been appointed the cricket manager. The evening they [Commonwealth Games organisers] came to know, all they wanted to talk about was cricket,” Currie says. “They didn’t want to talk about the Commonwealth Games at all. The [Indian] team was leaving for New Zealand in two days.”

Currie never played cricket at “any great level”, but brings a vast sporting experience to the team. He doesn’t see a great difference between managing other sports teams and a cricket team. “Everything is different on one hand, on the other everything is same,” he says. “Elite sportspeople are elite sportspeople; they want to be the best in the world. They have clear vision, clear goals, and clear plans, and work hard. Those principles are the same. And a cricket structure is not different from a hockey team.”

“Only difference is they have a very difficult touring programme. They spend time away from home. Also there’s a broader range of personalities than any other team.

There’s one more difference. “The captain, vice-captain and the coach don’t do any odd duties. They are focused on beating India.”