Fleming wants Bracewell to continue

Following New Zealand's exit from the World Cup semi-final, Stephen Fleming, the Test captain, is hopeful their coach John Bracewell will stay on after his contract expires next month. "I think Braces should stay on, I think he's a fine coach, he's worked well with this side," Fleming said in The Press.

Bracewell, who is expected to submit a detailed performance appraisal of the squad to New Zealand Cricket (NZC), said a review of the World Cup campaign would determine his future. He was recently under-fire from Martin Crowe, the former New Zealand captain, who suggested that he should resign.

However, Bracewell hasn't given any indication he would join the mass exodus of international coaches and said the priority would be to sort out the player contracts for the forthcoming season. "Once we've gone through that review process I'll make that decision on whether to continue, or that decision will be made for me," Bracewell told NZPA.

"Ric Charlesworth [the NZC high performance manager] has a lot of things on the table when we get back in terms of the development plan. We have a month of hard cricket ahead of us, not in terms of playing, but players' contracts have to be sorted out. There's a lot of work to do."

New Zealand impressed through the group stages but faltered towards the end of the event. They were exposed in all departments in the semi-final against Sri Lanka, raising questions about their ability to lift their performance in knock-out games. This was their fifth semi-final loss in World Cup history.

Though NZC were non committal on Bracewell's future, Justin Vaughan, the newly-appointed chief executive, was also hopeful that he would continue. He said the off-season would be ideal time for the players to reflect on their performances. "They have been going at it since the series against Sri Lanka in December so they deserve the chance to sit back and reflect on things," Vaughan said.

Reflecting on his side's showing in the tournament, Bracewell said they had performed above expectations, but admitted they were completely undone by a far superior side in the semi-final. "We were as well prepared as any side that's has been put together," he said. "We really have to put our hands up and say we didn't perform on the day. A good dose of Test cricket will do us the world of good - players like Ross Taylor and Peter Fulton need it to continue their development."