All the planning in the world couldn’t cope with disruption such as the terrorist attacks in the United States caused for world sport, and as one of the first sports groups to have their plans upset, New Zealand’s cricket selectors have to re-think
Lynn McConnell17-Sep-2001All the planning in the world couldn’t cope with disruption such as the terrorist attacks in the United States caused for world sport, and as one of the first sports groups to have their plans upset, New Zealand’s cricket selectors have to re-think their summer.The almost inevitable prospect that a tour of Pakistan will not be possible, with the cut-off time being Friday next week, means the two New Zealand sides, One-Day Internationals and Tests, will join those sports trivia oddities as teams that never took the field of play.Pakistan is known to be hoping to organise a seven-match ODI in the wake of the abandonment of New Zealand’s tour, but that will depend on the international political scene.What the New Zealand selectors face is having to re-think their plans for the tour of Australia which gets underway at the start of November, or earlier if matches can be arranged.While the tour of Pakistan coincided with rehabilitation work being undertaken by world-class all-rounder Chris Cairns and recovery and managed workload being done by Dion Nash, it was another chance to test other players in the heat of battle to see how they would respond.That test, for all intents and purposes, will not now be undertaken and the selectors will be required to dish out some disappointments to prospective team members.The emphasis now falls on Test match play and fielding the strongest possible team for that most demanding of tours.Selection chairman Sir Richard Hadlee said the selectors would now have to totally reassess their thoughts.”There are only so many places available for Australia and with Chris Cairns available, and possibly Dion Nash, the competition is going to be tough.”We have to have the strongest team possible,” he said.Hadlee was hopeful that more games could be arranged in Australia.”Four first-class games before the first Test in Brisbane would be ideal. It doesn’t matter where, although we do already have one against Queensland before the Test, it is mainly to get used to the harder grounds,” he said.Coach Denis Aberhart has also had to do some rethinking about his own plans because of the loss of what would have been a team-building tour to Pakistan.”Pakistan is a difficult place to tour and to do well there the team has to work closely and fight hard. We were looking forward to doing that to build our confidence for Australia,” he said.But there was an opposite stance which involved the team preparing well and doing all the right things in their build-up to go into the Australian series fresh.”We’re waiting to hear from NZC what options we’ve got but the main thing is to have players continuing to work on fitness and skills on a daily basis,” Aberhart said.He was also working on programmes for players to get together in each of the main centres to work on maintaining skill levels.”It’s just a case of stepping back and going back into preparation phase, rather than game phase,” he said.