Hadlee, Snedden in line for NZC role: New Zealand news

New Zealand news

Hadlee, Snedden in line for NZC role

Former Test cricketers Richard Hadlee, Martin Snedden and Geoff Allott are among eight recommended people who are likely to be voted in as New Zealand Cricket's new board of directors.

To be elected, each candidate needs more than 50% of the votes cast by the delegates representing all Major Associations and District Associations at a Special General Meeting in Auckland on September 19.

The other five recommendations, selected by an appointments panel, were Greg Barclay, Neil Craig, Liz Dawson, Stuart Heal and Don Mackinnon, all of whom have experience in sport and corporate administration and governance. Barclay, Heal and Mackinnon are current NZC directors seeking re-election. The three former cricketers also have extensive experience in administration of the sport.

"It was a difficult job selecting the eight candidates from a range of quality nominees," NZC president Stephen Boock said. "I am confident that through this thorough process we have found a group of people with the combined skillsets to drive cricket forward in this country."

The upcoming vote is an outcome of the new NZC constitution that was approved in July.

New Zealand Cricket's board of directors is set to undergo an overhaul, following its adoption of a new constitution at a special general meeting on Friday. As per the new constitution, an "appointments panel" will recommend candidates for the eight-member board of directors, and the 28 members of the NZC will then vote to endorse - or reject - the candidates.

While the current directors are eligible to seek re-election to their posts, NZC chairman Chris Moller announced at the meeting that he would step down from the role in September, following the elections. "I have been chairman of New Zealand Cricket for three years and a director for five years, the same duration that I chose to be involved in New Zealand Rugby and being chairman is a hugely time consuming role," Moller was quoted as saying in a NZC release. "I also think it is in the best interests of cricket in New Zealand for a new chairman to be inducted into the ICC during the tenure of Alan Isaac as president."

It was decided that the appointments panel will comprise a convenor who is nominated by the board, the chairpersons of three of the major associations (the six major associations will be represented on the panel by annual rotation) and one person nominated by Sport New Zealand, the government organisation responsible for sport. The first panel includes NZC president Stephen Boock as convenor, Auckland Cricket chairman Rex Smith, Northern Districts Cricket chairman Lachlan Muldowney, Otago Cricket chairman Murray Hughes and Sport New Zealand's John Wells.

As per the new process, vacancies on the board of directors will be publicly advertised, and anyone can apply for the posts. The adverts will go out on July 13, and the appointments panel will process the applications over the next ten weeks. It will advise NZC of its recommended candidates on September 10, and the voting will be on September 19 at the board's next special general meeting. Until then, the current directors will remain office.

The new board of directors, based on the appointment panel's recommendations, might be paid salaries. This recommendation is pending approval from the board; it will have to be ratified at its annual general meeting.

The new constitution was drawn up in consultation with "a wide cross-section of the cricketing community", including the NZC's six major associations and 22 district associations. Previously, the directors were appointed by one NZC board member, one representative of the major associations and two persons from the New Zealand Institute of Directors, an organisation that promotes best corporate governance

 

The long and short of the run-up

The long and short of the run-up

Ian Botham galloped "like a shire horse cresting the breeze". Some bowlers skip and some bound. Bob Willis angled into the crease with one arm agog like a wounded heron. Dale Steyn is gun-barrel straight, targeting batsmen from the moment he raises the ball, almost like an officer with a pistol, ready to execute. Nottingham legend says they cut a hole in the hedge for Harold Larwood, that he started his marathon run-up in the adjoining field. And then there was Michael Holding, "Whispering Death", all that lethal force hidden in his languid approach and the feline glide before brute pace thudded into ribs.

According to the 1952 MCC Cricket Coaching Book, "The object of the run-up is to bring the bowler to the bowling crease completely balanced and with the momentum necessary to bowl", and that "its length should be the minimum necessary to provide this momentum".

Therefore, the faster the bowler, the longer the run-up. This would equate to Frank "Typhoon" Tyson's 38-yard charge to deliver the humdingers that compelled Don Bradman to admit he was "the fastest bowler I have ever seen".

But "Typhoon" was human too. Injuries riven from a raw action pounding ball and body into the pitch brought a premature end to his career, despite heeding the advice of master coach Alf Gover to reduce his labours into the crease on the 1954-55 Ashes tour. His 28 wickets at 20.82 apiece helped win the series and Tyson was named one of the 1956 Wisden Cricketers of the Year. With the wisdom of hindsight, would Tyson have traded fewer steps for a longer career and less pace? In his 1977 Cricket Coaching Manual he says a run-up length should "not be too long and tiring" and ought to be "carried out with correct acceleration and deceleration within the minimum space".

As a bowler on the verge of 40 and, despite years of being proved to otherwise, still believing that I can send down lightning bolts, my mind, machismo and mortality refuse to accept what my body wants - a shortened run-up.

For most bowlers the prize wicket is an uprooted stump. Larwood only considered pegs flying as a true dismissal. But if I could freeze-frame one moment of bowling it would be that last step before the delivery stride, all the potential still in my hand, seam primed, and the buffed new ball ready to warp in flight. In this golden snapshot I have balance, speed and control. No rhythm lost in the sprint to the crease, just a gathering of momentum like a train leaving a station.

Which is why I fear trundlerhood. That the act most dear to me must be retired for a post-pace career of military medium. That I'll become exactly the kind of middle-aged dobber I love to belt over the sightscreen.

Listening to Hadlee, Marshall and Akram, along with my aching limbs after bowling 28 overs in three days, I should focus on strategy and rhythm

Actually, isn't this exactly the kind of bowler I often get out to? The old-timer with guile. A bowler with cutters and subtle changes of pace, the wily seamer who tricks me into thinking I can waft him over cow corner, before I swing and find the bails are missing.

Perhaps there is a future after fast.

If I look to my bowling heroes for advice, the mantra of a "fewer steps equals more" certainly repeats. Sir Richard Hadlee recalls the day he made the decision to shorten his run as a "turning point in his career". And he was a relatively sprightly 29 when he decided to curtail his number of strides. "It gave me an extra ten years in the game and I was three times more effective," he told the Guardian when asked to comment on the experimental trimming of Steven Finn's approach. "The short run allowed me to be more explosive at the crease."

"Explosive". Now that's an adjective to sway a wannabe fast bowler into technique change.

And what bowler off a short run was more explosive than Wasim Akram, detonating batsman with toe-breaking yorkers and wicked swing. Admittedly I don't have the whippy shoulder-action of Wasim, but listening to him speak with ESPNcricinfo's very own Sambit Bal, brains are more important than brawn. "Fast bowling is not all about fitness and power; it is not all about big dumb men with biceps and triceps."

The late great Malcolm Marshall may well agree. Although hardly a bowling dwarf at five feet ten, he was diminutive in a West Indies attack of giants, and another thinking paceman who strode in off fewer steps than most of his feared contemporaries. "He was the only bowler I can remember who could rattle Sunil Gavaskar," said Kapil Dev.

Listening to Hadlee, Marshall and Akram, along with my aching limbs after bowling 28 overs in three days, I should focus on strategy and rhythm. Hadlee dissected technique, Wasim swung, and Marshall varied to devastating effect.

That's the common-sense approach. Fewer steps, less strain on the body. But less pace too. And I know that the first batsman to hit me over the ropes off a shortened run-up will spike my testosterone, and that I'll probably take a few more steps before the next ball. And if that too is despatched, the marker might be moved a few yards further still. Running in to bowl I won't be thinking about my dodgy knees and back, the stabbing pain in my left heel, because as the Typhoon himself once said, "To bowl fast is to revel in the glad animal action, to thrill in physical power."