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On the Front Foot with Brian Waddell and Jeremy Cody, powered by News Talk sad B at iHeartRadio.
Hello on the Front Foot this week tries to answer a few questions as the ICC lost control of the game to boot the money investors. Two wins in the financial race game for the corporates. This New Zealand Cricket's previous administrators deliver a hospital part for the current leaders as they face the contract as you would players seemingly
now available with no franchise crickets being played. He who pays the piper own is Conway worth more than Ravender or Allen on the casual contract versus the free market league? And where have we heard this before? World Players Union wants reform in broken unsustainable cricket calendar. Goodness graces me joining us as ever Jeremy Coney and the former Central Districts a spin baller, Stue duff because he's going to
talk to us about left arm spin bowling. Why are there so many bloody left arm spin bowlers left in the world. They seem to be three of three or four on every team. We'll talk about that a little bit later on Duffy. But Jerry, the issues that we're talking about today, they've been bubbling, bubbling under for some time. It's not unexpected, is it that the the World Players Union wants a reform.
No no high wand side hi Stu and yeah, yeah, congested schedule. It's a pretty coming cry. You know. It's good that the cricket TV companies wont to broadcast the game. That's great, but pretty clear we've got close to breaking point just the sheer quantity of it, isn't it really? And I think also a bit of a concern that the quality may not quite be there. It's becoming just another game when you turn on the telly, it's like warpaper in that wall to wall kind of. It's sometimes
quite a good reason to make people wait. I think can build up a bit of expectation. But somewhere in the world there is a game going on and you wonder to yourself, what stage is this format at? You know what I mean? But there are three formats worldwide wides four in England Ic CE tournaments every year, T twenty ODIs and Test Championships and a Champion's trophy, and then on top you've got the bilaterals and then any
break there's an endless list of franchise ornaments. So lots of upside for the players, lots of money, lots of options, money and power. They got it both, haven't they. And that comes into the contracts that you were talking about later.
Ju and I were talking about the quality issue that you mentioned as well, and that quality isn't there in some of these tournaments now. There's no real contest between the best players, is there?
No.
I'm a little bit ignorant about it too, because I just come by the turning on and watching it. It's just another tournament, just another bit of cricket played somewhere. So for me, I don't I don't follow it particularly closely, and you just give a passing interest that there's a game being played somewhere in some country you've never heard of cricket being played before, But I guess with Dustin Johnson when he wins to the golf, he stead, if someone's going to pay you more for doing less than
you're going to do it. And the cricketers are in that boat, aren't they. They don't have to be tied to a contract with the country anymore. They can just be free agents and wander around the world and pick up more money. So you can't really blame them, but it's a shame about the impact on the game in total.
Yeah, Jerry, the issue you know players and Ben Stokes was one mentioned says it needs to be reformed. We don't know what the game of cricket is going to be like in two years. Well, what's it going to be like in two weeks? That's one of the questions. Do you think they will do anything about it? And do you think the ICC really care? They just want the money?
Gee, that's a lot of questions. Was Look, it's certainly changing very quickly, isn't it. There's no doubt about that. The days I think back to when we were going in a van to the airport at the start of a tour and the manager and the passenger seat at the front turns and sort of hands out a sheet of paper and says sign this and that's our contract. You know, no central contracts. In those days. We were all packed. You know, we nearly had our boarding pass,
but we just signed and didn't care. I really just wanted to play. But you know, now all the players are in a position to bargain, and so ever since the IPL started they've allowed the market to regulate the game. They just have sat back, unfortunately, and the longer formats are now not really quite so commercially viable other than England, and so really the administrators need to create windows, don't they for international play, and then another one for franchise play,
and then another one for a breathing space. I think that's very important. You mentioned Ben Stokes there, so his injury and as soon as you got sport, you've got a chance of injury. But they've got to bring some order to it. My worry is that they're too far down the road. We're about ten to twelve years late, and you know they've sat back and allowed the market to take control and they didn't know what to do
or how to do it. And so it's not the administrators setting the schedule, it's the market and the players.
Yeah, and that's and that's the game. Sure, isn't the time now? Is They just want to keep raking in the money from all these games. And it seems to me that the Mumbai Indians are going to make all the money. Some of the players will get a good deal of cash as they do in terms of the contracts, but you know, not everybody's going to benefit from all this money that's going around. It's going to go into the pockets of the big money people. That's the way I see it.
Yeah, it's just filtered through all the way down. I think we're talking about it off here before. And Doug Bracewells turned down in a Central Districts contract because he can make more money just dipping in and out and playing for Central and then going over and playing for in the Southern African League. And once it's happening at
domestic level, it's filtered all the way down. And New Zealand are in a really parless situation, much more so than anyone else because they can't afford to pay enough. And you get your best player, came Williamson moving on and admittedly he's going to play a lot of cricket for New Zealand, you'd hope. But he's choosing not to take the biggest contract there is. So if it's left that's not enough, then where do you say?
Did you play in the era of the contracts here when they went through that bargaining process and it was quite ugly for a while, wasn't it in terms of domestic players?
No, I didn't.
I played in the area where we got forty bucks a day.
But you paid you even you were lucky.
Yeah, I had to pay meil and laundry out of that, so obviously you know you were rolling.
In it, of course. Yeah. I worry now Jerry, and you know Devon Conway, we don't know that. There was talk of something like three million dollars was on the table and you know he's going to take He's going to take a big money payout, as are all the players. I just worry about the development of the game now he's thirty three. But the other people, the likes of Ruts and Ravendra, his value on the open market, well, it's just eyewatering to think what they would want to
pay Ruts and Ravender. And I understand he's already getting plenty of offers and that's no surprise, is it.
Well, a lot of our players, it seems to me we're dividing into sort of two or three three different groups, aren't we. You've got the Nichems, Bolt, Ferguson, Milne, Colin Munroe has been doing it for a while and Siphered is a certain extent is there as well for Allen and they are kind of their own people. They are responsible for themselves. No central money coming to the to them from New Zealand Cricket and nothing for if they break a leat or something like that. They'll have to
have their own medical arrangements. Nothing for Hammes, and I'm thinking they're of Ferguson and Merlin. That goes down then I'm afraid you find your own physio, you know, that's part of the deal if you choose that way. And then you've got this new thing called casual contracts. Williamson one hundred tests. The interesting one you mentioned was Conway twenty tests. It's not that many. It's not that many.
He is thirty three, which is your point, and its marriage and its family and so on, you know, in the extra car in a slightly larger house, but I can see next year. I don't know what you guys think. Mitchell Phillips, Santner. You mentioned Ravendra, Well he'll be in line. He's only twenty four, but he may because he's that stage, he may want to play a few more tests, Mark Chapman, or perhaps join the Niche and Bolt Finalen kind of way more. But that's twelve players. Wads I worry for
me the up and coming players. And Stu's mentioned it about first class sitting beside and alongside and a setting of a changing room of Bruce Taylor, Richard Collins, Bevan Congden, Bruce Murray, all that experience and knowledge will now be absent from a dressing room and the way that it forms and it shapes you as a player. The other point I would make is about pity for the n
z S and Stu's mentioned that as well. There's not much they can do, but they've seen these players go through club cricket, underage seventeen and nineteens, provincial cricket, n ZEDA teams, development teams. They've paid for traveling overseas and for New Zealand for first class affairs. They played airfares around New Zealand accommodation. All the pitchers and indoor nets and those things are prepared, all the insurance if they
get injured. Coaching staff. You know, there is a cost in preparing a player to be the best they can be.
Yeah, and some of those players have developed new mentions to the central districts of Doug Bracel and Tom Bruce. I mean, you know their days internationally are gone. They're going to take the extra money they can make by going to the franchises or doing that little bit extra to finish off their career. I mean a Tom Bruce, I think they had a job anyway, didn't he But you know that's what they're going to do.
Yeah, Blead techns another who will be in that boat for sure. And as Jeremy said, it really filters down badly. And club cricket's been going through that for maybe twenty years, but now it's going to start happening in the first class group arena where you don't get to play with those guys that you know, I played with the International cricketers cricket level, that just doesn't happen anymore. And if that's the case at first class leave where you've got a real problem.
Yeah, well I had that advantage too and club and not not that it made me any better as a cricketer, but I shared a dressing room with the players that Jerry was talking about, Bags, Murray, T. G. McMahon. You know, Bruce Taylor was the captain of the side, John Morrison, you know, the name goes on. I'd love to have been able to have some of their skill rub off,
but just the experience they brought to you. You know, when you sat down after you played a bad shot and Bruce Taylor would come and and you know he'd give you a real air full. Bags would sit beside you and say, well, bad luck. You know you probably
could have played that one a little bit better. And you know, all those sorts of things will be missing, and we're going to end up, as I said previously, with a whole lot of bloody baseball players, you know, batting seven balls for fifteen or bowling five balls and calling it an over.
Yeah. Well look, I just think why would you as a board want to have a situation where you've probably got a lot of younger players perennially young New Zealand side, Because every decent player who has a couple of good years, say at International Crickets, is snatched away or lured or whatever, willingly led away, it'll be the end of our conservative
selection policies. But you know the you know, why would you want to spend their money preparing local players for a labor force of some overseas cement baron?
You know.
And even if you're an older first class player who get in the New Zealand side, you're even more vulnerable because you're married and as I say, you want other things. Even our coaches we've lost the Torrian Fleming and McCallum. They're gone and you know they are taken by the franchise set up as well. But the next question is
what can New Zealand Cricket do. If I was a player coming to New Zealand to play for New Zealand for the first time, could New Zealand Cricket offer me a contract because I've played well at the first class level and you know I'm coming up and I'm the real deal. And if they offer me a contract, could they make it for three or four or five years
and say, look, this is a multiple contract. We'll pay you for this time, but you play for New Zealand and these other conditions, and the player then makes his choice, and they know that I would know that I need international performance to be recognized by the franchise setup, and the contract should have to be constructed carefully. And it might mean if I break it in two and a half years, I have to pay some money back to
the board because I've broken the contract. But surely the board has to hug a bit of cash back from some of these guys. Guys, we are going to have millionaires short format players living in New Zealand still playing, but not for New Zealand.
Yeah, but if you have for five, say a five year contracts you run out of form in eighteen months time, do you keep that contract going? I mean, what about the old days? And I know this is really old day stuff where you're played by the you were paid by the games you played, the wickets you took or the runs you scored. You know, that was the old contracting system, wasn't it. You wouldn't be able to make that work these days, would you.
It's a really complicated situation, doesn't it.
Really.
It's a really difficult one. I see where Jerry's coming from. But then you take. You need to be pretty nostrodamus like to work out who's going to be the good players down the trail and decide that you're going to stick with those guys. And it's a really terrible situation, he said on Cricketer Found Themselves and they're just allowing people to walk out without any recompense. You know, last go back to last year when all of a sudden, Tom Bruce and Doggie brace Well went with the Central
Districts team when they'd been contract for the season. But there's no loss of income apart from the matches they missed. They've still got their contracts and where's the enforcement of a contract. They're just taking the easy way out because it's too difficult.
Well, who was the bowler who walked out after he bowled his overs in the middle of a game during one of the internationals, wasn't it He got.
Muhammed AHMYA yeah, yeah, Muhammad Amya was over in England and they are playing one hundred competition there and he got drafted into one of those franchises. He only was there for one game. Well, he left after thirty minutes. He bowled his overs the first couple of overs left after thirty minutes, had his suitcase at the ground and just headed off to the airport to go over to America to play in a franchise competition there. Extraordinary, what's happening.
I wasn't suggesting, by the way, Stu, that everybody would have that four year contract. If it's an Avendra or a Martin Crow or someone like that Dora Hadley, who's obviously someone special, you want to get them early before they've played, you know, really come into the thing and suddenly the franchises want them from all over the world. Sure, and the other guys you might, yeah, the other guys, you might make it one and a half two years sort of thing.
But like a football model, wasn't it that they give you and they you know, they get them to the Manchester United when they're fifteen or fourteen and tie them in for a decent period of time.
Yeah. I mean, I wouldn't want to be an administrator trying to sort it out in New Zealand because New Zealand just doesn't have the money. They have to rely on money that comes from ICC, from television and from other forms of advertising and stuff. But you know that money has never really been in the game in New Zealand hasidant. So you know, you talk about your forty dollars a day or forty dollars a game, forty dollars a week, depending on how it was spread out, that
that was the way it was. And it's going to be tough for them to negotiate because the players have got all the power now, haven't they.
Yeah, massive amounts and that can get paid in so many places around the world that they don't really need New Zealand except as their base, and unfortunately we've got I don't know how they solve it.
No interesting challenge for the administrators. I'm sure we will hear a lot more on this because the issue of whether they're going to have an investigation and was an unsustainable cricket calendar remains up in the air, I suppose, and we will hear about that in due course.
Brian Waddell, Jeremy Coney on the front foot.
The black Caps off to the subcontinent. Student is the white ball game? Has it been the salvation for spin bowling? We've got truckloads of them going. There's five options open to Captain Tim Soudy. He's not going to use them all. He's got Seclaim Mushtak there to help those spin bowlers through the difficulties of bowling over there. How would you go about picking aside and which spinners would you opt for?
Well, I think I was thinking about this before and before we started, and I think the fortunate situation for the teams that they've got Ravendra and Phillips who will probably play as batsman. So they've got two ballers there for a start who can hit part timers admittedly, but
they're reasonable part timers. And then you can decide of the other three who's boiling the best and however many you want out of those guys, one or two depending on the pitch conditions, out of Patel, sand and Braceful, I think you'll to feed them in on who's bowling the best, as long as those other two are doing a reasonable job as well, because they'll play anyway. So I think that's probably how they'll look to do it. You can have too many spin bowlers in a team
you don't want to be. It's really hard if you just feel like, oh, well there's eight overs, you need a decent spell. And so I think there's a can be a problem of having too many in a team and the people not doing the job. You often get better and better when when you're boiling a spell into your twentieth to twenty five to thirty overs and things start to happen there rather than bowling eight. Oh you haven't got a wicket off you go. Yeah, that's an
interesting situation. I think who's boiling the best out of those three will end up playing you.
They're different bowlers, aren't they really? When you look at them. I know it's easy to say we've got Revendra Patel and Santna all left armors, but they are. I mean, Satna is a flatter generally a flatter bowler in test matches, so is Ravendra, whereas Patel tends to get the ball up and down a bit more, you know, and then brace will. Obviously, we don't have a left arm seemer to create footmarks for off spinners, so we need to
rely on the opposition to do that for us. But as a general kind of thing, if the pitch looked a bit drier and a bit dusty and cracked, and it was more control of line and pitching in places where you can get that variable bounce and turn and it happens quicker. Would you tend to favor a Santner over a Patel?
Yes, I think with the rider that Sander bowls were fuller than he generally does. I think he bowls too short. I don't think he brings them forward enough. And you have to do it at the pace on a wicket like that, And so if you can bowl a full fuller length at pace, I'd go with that definitely. But the other person, I do like Braceful in that situation too. You know, he really does turn the ball. He bolted a reasonable well. Clip two gets a bit of bounce
because he's tall. So I think those two guys in those conditions yet as long as sat in the battle but fuller, I think that it would work quite well.
Yeah, but you'd use Patel in a picture where you thought it was flatter and was going to last a little bit longer, where flight, you know, up above the batsman's eyes and then dropping a little bit more. You might go for a few more runs, because that's quite hard to control because your length, you know, just even though it's coming down more steeply and you beat the forward defensive shot, it's you know, you'd use him and those conditions a bit more, would you? Yeah?
I think so. He's there's more of the guy who's a out and out spin bowler, isn't it. The other guys are all round us, Whereas he's used to bowling decent spells. He's made to bowl twenty five to thirty five overs. And I think if you want someone to do that sort of job where you're just wearing away at them and bowling good lines and lengths and teasing them a bit more, then he's your man. I don't
really like local Center in those conditions. I think he's again he bowls too short and it's too defensive, and it works well in one day cricket, but I don't think it's really a good option in the test matches.
Then you come to the other point. How much in a team does the fact that Bracewool and Satiner can field in a variety of positions closer to the bat, perhaps more reliable catches, and might supply more runs than Patel. How much does that weigh on who you play?
I don't think it should. I think that's too defensive in terms of trying to get people out. I think you should just look at the bowling and think who's going to who's most likely in these conditions to get the wickets. If you can't get runs with all the other players you've got, then one more way probably won't make a difference. And I think you just got to live with the fact that Betel's not quite as good a fielder as those two.
Yeah, that's coming to our thinking in the past, hasn't it sadly in terms of the selections that they've left Patel out. You know, he takes ten wickets and the Test innings and the next Test is in and played, He's not included when they when they come home for whatever reason, the pitchers don't suit or he may not be able to bowl in those conditions. But in New Zealand conditions, now look at the bowlers who have been
successful and are likely to be successful. Nathan Lyon. Of course he's a quality player, but we've got to prepare pitchers and we've got to use our bowlers and get the variety of the attack that the ages Patel's can offer.
Well, Betel's had a great record over in the Subcontinent, isn't it. I mean he hasn't get it much of an opportunity in New Zealand, as you say, but every time it seems like he's a little bit on the arter, even though you look back at his record each time and he's he's someone who performs. He's performed really well.
I think he's averaging round about thirty just under thirty in Test cricket per wicket and quite trying conditions at times, and he always seems to be oh, well, play and if we have to, because he's not quite as good as Bets but not quite as good a fielder, I think you've really just got to look at the bowling conditions to decide is he one of your main spin balls and if he is playing, and take take the lack of runs, and take the lack of wicket fielding and just go with him.
Yeah, I'm not glad they've got somebody likes to claim
Mushtak there to work with the spin bowlers. I'm disappointed they don't have a seam bowling option in terms of the coaching for the likes of Sears and a Rought, because this is the you know, the development time for them, you know, the likes of Jurgensen who worked with a long time now is obviously working with Ben Sears, but you know he's opted out of that role and it would be a good time to have somebody there to mentor these guys too, wouldn't it.
Well.
I was just talking to Liam Dunning, who's going to the well Out and Firebird, So I played golf for them last week CenTra Restricts Players Team Viola and he had a session with Shane Jurgenson just a week or two ago when he went down and he said it was great, he got a lot out of it. So there's a guy who's been around, who's thirty and got quite a bit out of just one or two sessions that he's from somebody who knows what they're doing. So yeah, certainly would be helpful for those fillers.
Yeah, yeah, I know. I was just going to mention Nathan Smith. He's in Wellington, doesn't he want so?
Yes?
Heah, And that will have helped having Jurgensen there for him.
And he must be in line for a contract now that all these guys are opting out. I mean, we don't know how many people have signed up for News in credit. They've probably signed up the casual contracts to go on this tour, but you know, we don't know how many contracts are available for some of these players, but you know he's he's an all rounder of the future to my mind. I don't know how you see it.
I haven't seen a lot of them. I've seen a little bit on on just the coverage on television at times, and he looks a good player. But no, I haven't. I haven't seen so I can't really comment.
So after the Subcontinent, I guess you never got to bowl on the subcontinent ste but you'll be interested to see how these guys go.
Yeah, I think most of the time that I've watched pricket over there, you've got to push the through the ball through it, but it seems to be slowish and I think we've got the attack to do okay, certainly got a decent batting side, and be interesting to see how they structure their quick bowls. I guess it really depends on what they see in the wickets in front of them. But with Sears and O'Rourke, they've got a
couple of likely lads. You can come and bowl four overs at the time and in cause a bit of damage hopefully, and then let the spinners do their job.
Good stuff. Well, well, thank you for joining us. It'd be nice to talk to you again about that that tour and how the spin balls were gone a little bit later as we go on, you can pack your clubs into the car and head off now to the to the golf course.
Up after work once. But it's not too far away to range, so yeah, I'll do that. Nice to talk about.
Yeah, man, that's great, that's great. I thought I was I was going to do this from bed it was so early, but no, I got up for you.
Oh.
Thanks. When I keep and I keep very gentlemanly hours.
Yeah, well I do these days.
I don't start work till the earliest, so that's pretty good.
Yeah. Yeah, good on you. Jerry. You can get out of bed now you can go back and take you have.
A couple of you all right, cheers boys, Thanks guys.
Thanks as all.
The wad Fuldies summer singing.
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