Wright a 'strong contender' for high-performance role

John Wright, the former New Zealand captain, has been tipped to replace Ric Charlesworth as New Zealand Cricket's (NZC) high performance manager. Charlesworth quit on Wednesday to take up a position with the Indian hockey team.

"I think he [Wright] would be a strong contender, but we have to look at what other options there might be," NZC chief executive Justin Vaughan told the Dominion Post. "We'll hopefully make a decision sooner rather than later on Ric's replacement."

NZC signed Wright for a high-performance role in July although the exact nature of his position was not spelled out. Wright was coach of the New Zealand A which played against Australia's domestic teams in a pre-season competition in Queensland in the first week of October.

Wright had earlier expressed interest in projects such as overhauling the talent-spotting programmes and studying the realtionship between the major provincial associations and NZC.