New Zealand cricket emerged stronger from tumult, says Snedden

"Tumultuous times" was how Martin Snedden, the chief executive of New Zealand Cricket, described the last 12 months at today's annual general meeting of New Zealand Cricket (NZC). From the players' strike of last October through to the decision not to visit Kenya during the World Cup, NZC has had a few crises to handle during that period of time.

But out of those difficult days, especially from the strike, new relationships have developed, and Snedden said he had been heartened by the recovery in the relationship between administrators. The home performance against India last summer had helped with the healing process, he said.

"I deal with the Cricket Players' Association nearly every day, as do many of the staff, while the major associations are also working more closely with them. The end result of it all has been a good player contract system," said Snedden.

The Kenyan issue highlighted how much safety and security issues had become part of modern administration. It was the case that there would be times when New Zealand's view of security matters would be totally different to other countries, and this would create tensions. That was just a fact of modern life, he told the meeting.

Snedden said while the Test performances of the New Zealand team merited their third place in the rankings, there was inconsistency in the one-day arena that needed to be focussed on. There were players of talent and ability, and New Zealand needed consistency of results to move away from the middle of the rankings and launch an attack on the positions occupied by Australia and South Africa.

The White Ferns still had a large gap between themselves and Australia at the top of the poll in women's cricket. Snedden likened the situation to that in netball where, five or six years ago, the two countries were in similar positions. The challenge for New Zealand was to close the gap in the way the netballers did this year, in taking the world title off Australia. It would take time, and the supporters would have to be patient as the gap was narrowed, said Snedden.

Snedden said he felt the quality of domestic cricket was improving and the players' contract system would help this by allowing a larger number of players to commit with confidence to a semi-professional career. There did need to be a stronger focus on playing conditions because if the work was not put in there, then it would be a waste of the good efforts happening in other areas of the game.

Coaching had also had a significant boost, and the policy of sending major association coaches away with the national side would be continued, especially in the improved programme for the New Zealand A team.

Snedden left no doubt about the commitment of NZC to the development of grassroots cricket through the cricket coordinators' programme. "This is a long-term project and we can't expect instant success with it. But I am pleased there has been an almost total buy-in to this programme by the Major and District Associations.

"Out of everything we are doing, this is the one in the end that is the most important," he said. "It is the one that resources must go into. We must get it right because we will get the rewards from this."

Snedden vowed to continue the policy of openness in dealing with the media that marked his tactical approach during the players' strike. He said that by putting information on issues in front of the public, and letting them see the thinking behind decisions, it was nice to get a boost of confidence from the public understanding and acceptance of decision-making.

He also hinted at the direction of the strategic plan, called "Pushing the boundaries", being enacted within the next month. It was a fact of New Zealand's geography and small population that it didn't enjoy the resources of nearly all of its international rivals. In order to compete with those countries, it was vital that New Zealand made every possible use of its own resources.

The geography and population barriers should not be an excuse, said Snedden. "We have got to drive ourselves past that. We have to extract the absolute maximum that we can and get ourselves into the mental state where we push ourselves beyond what people reasonably expect and achieve more than what people expect.

"We have to push ourselves harder and harder, higher and higher, in all aspects of the game, not only at elite level but through all aspects of the game," Snedden added. "These are really exciting times for New Zealand Cricket and we are just about there with our release of the plan. We have found through working on these matters at NZC that we are already thinking that way in our decision-making. We can't settle for the ordinary, we have to push ourselves beyond that."