New Zealand Off Season 2014

[Prince EWS]

it's a salary though. Weird.

Yeah but it's a six month salary. You're technically not employed for the rest of the year unless you find another job in that time.

 

[Bahnz]

As PEWS noted, pretty sure you get the whole lot during the season. So you're employed for 6 months then on your own until the next round of contracts.

A lot of guys go overseas and make some decent money that way, club cricket in England seems to be alright if you can get a good deal. Otherwise it's coaching or finding a job that suits the cricketer's lifestyle.

Yeah, and that potentially creates a huge problem - especially in terms of our best domestic cricketers. Our best spinner has effectively retired from international duties because his domestic salary is so insubstantial in comparison to the money he makes in England.

 

[Athlai]

T20s as well Athlai ...And the ER to boot

Thats crazy, has never really been a good T20 bowler.

 

[Bahnz]

Thats crazy, has never really been a good T20 bowler.

Another 5-wicket bag in the Championship over night as well.

 

[hendrix]

Yeah, and that potentially creates a huge problem - especially in terms of our best domestic cricketers. Our best spinner has effectively retired from international duties because his domestic salary is so insubstantial in comparison to the money he makes in England.

He would more than likely have got a NZC contract had he played in the Windies.

 

[Bahnz]

Probably, but he couldn't have known that in advance. Given how his past experiences as New Zealand's 2nd spinner have been, he probably considered it more likely that he'd got one game on a motorway before being confined to the sidelines for 3 weeks straight. He probably regrets it now, seeing how easily Craig surplanted Sodhi as the first choice spinner.

Anyway, it just strikes me as wasteful and wrong that an experienced domestic cricketer sees playing for New Zealand as a serious risk to his career prospects.

 

[hendrix]

The missed opportunity with Jeets really bugs me. I have no doubt that he's a better bowler than Craig and would've done at least as well as him, while also maintaining a better economy rate.

He's also gun in the field.

uggh. It grates.

Anyway, it just strikes me as wasteful and wrong that an experienced domestic cricketer sees playing for New Zealand as a serious risk to his career prospects.

yup.

 

[BackFootPunch]

Yeah, and that potentially creates a huge problem - especially in terms of our best domestic cricketers. Our best spinner has effectively retired from international duties because his domestic salary is so insubstantial in comparison to the money he makes in England.

Yeah the life of a domestic cricketer is fine for a young bloke who just goes back to uni or does odd jobs for the winter. But once you're in that zone where you may not get an international career, or won't get another extended crack at it having already been there, it must be bloody tough to keep going.

Financial security is pretty important to a guy with a young family.

And all this just makes it harder for us to have a strong first class system. In places like England and Australia being a first class journeyman is alright, it's still a solid living so they can do it until normal retiring age for a cricketer. Here a 28 year old, who's a strong FC performer but no chance of a NZ call up, may pull pin as soon as the financial pressure comes on. In a few years I can see us ending up with a domestic scene where it's largely young guys breaking through and recent international players still dreaming of a return. The established FC guys will start moving on younger and younger unless their pay goes up pretty substantially.

 

[Prince EWS]

And all this just makes it harder for us to have a strong first class system. In places like England and Australia being a first class journeyman is alright, it's still a solid living so they can do it until normal retiring age for a cricketer.

Yeah, the injustice of this is sad in a way -- that the "almost Test standard" domestic cricket scene is not even close to being meritocratic. Better players are locked out of these systems because of the emphasis on providing selection options for the Test side, which means a focus on local and qualified players. The Australian and English domestic FC scenes don't pay more because they're autonomously profitable -- they do so because CA and the ECB generate a lot more revenue and can allocate more to domestic cricket, which means they have the domestic teams by the balls and can tell them not to go off and employ quality domestic journeymen from overseas, through literal regulation or through back room threats.

 

[Bahnz]

I still don't really get why England axed the old 2 international players per team rule. As George Dobell has whinged about fairly frequently, all the 1-international player per team rule-change has done is lower the overall standard of English domestic cricket.

 

[brockley]

Cachopa shifting to England not a surprise,the Cachopa's born S Africa,played under 19 for NZ,lived in Australia a while in Adelaide,played cricket in Darwin.
But i don't feel for NZ's loss how many Aussies and South Africans played in NZ domestic cricket,and how many have gone onto play for NZ.

 

[Kippax]

Cachopa shifting to England not a surprise,the Cachopa's born S Africa,played under 19 for NZ,lived in Australia a while in Adelaide,played cricket in Darwin.

You're thinking of his brother Carl there.

 

[Howsie]

Cachopa shifting to England not a surprise,the Cachopa's born S Africa,played under 19 for NZ,lived in Australia a while in Adelaide,played cricket in Darwin.
But i don't feel for NZ's loss how many Aussies and South Africans played in NZ domestic cricket,and how many have gone onto play for NZ.

It's a massive surprise IMO. We're talking about a guy who might not be good enough yet (he's 22) but in all probability would've had some sort of international carrer. I mean this is a guy who captained a NZ under 19 team that had the likes of Corey Anderson, Jimmy Neesham, Tom Latham, Doug Bracewell and Adam Milne.

 

[Prince EWS]

You're thinking of his brother Carl there.

To be fair he did start that train of thought with 'the Cachopa's' (sic).

 

[Kippax]

Westlake Boys High School Cachopa Brothers

The Cachopa family name is well recognised and held in high regards at Westlake Boys High School. Proud father, Joe Cachopa is the school’s Deputy Headmaster and mother Margie is a Guidance Councillor and E-Sol teacher at our school. Since their immigration from South Africa to New Zealand in 2002 the Cachopa brothers Carl, Brad and Craig have all attended Westlake and have each made their mark in the wider Westlakers community both through sports and academic achievements.

As the youngest of three, Craig was at Westlake from 2006-2009 where he followed in the footsteps of his two brothers. He represented the 1st XI Cricket for four years and captained the 2009 Auckland Gillette Cup Winning team. He played 1st XI Hockey for 3 years and after captaining the New Zealand U19 Cricket team at the ICC U19 World Cup tournament in Christchurch in 2010, Craig also played at Tracy Village for two seasons, receiving Club Cricketer of the Year award. He played one season for Wellington in 2011, before returning to play for Auckland, where he received ACA Young Cricketer of the Year Award and Club Cricketer of the Year award, playing for Takapuna. Craig is currently completing Bachelor of Business degree at Massey University.

 

[Bahnz]

But i don't feel for NZ's loss how many Aussies and South Africans played in NZ domestic cricket,and how many have gone onto play for NZ.

Ignoring guys like Watling and Lou vincent, who moved to New Zealand when they were kids, I can think of 4 obvious ones - van Wyk and Wagner from SA and Brownlie and Ronchi from Australia. I would consider that on net, New Zealand has probably suffered more from NZers leaving than they've benefited from foreigners coming over here (when you consider that in the last 5 or so years Adams, Marshall, Patel and O'Brien all gave up their NZ careers to go play overseas).

 

[CharlesLara]

But in my view, someone like Boam, inflated averages due to not outs aside, realised he wasn't good enough to put pressure on for an NZ position where as most of his life, he'd been given opportunities early on at age group level. It was the first time he had to fight and he didn't have the fight in him.

Stu Mills wanted to travel from what I remember and didn't really have his heart in cricket, he just happened to be pretty damn talented at it and didn't need to put much effort in to get to the first class level, so that's a loss but ultimately I just consider that no different to say a Jeff Wilson style loss, where the guy had other options.

Austin Smellie, Brodie and Boam were all age group representatives who struggled to make enough noise to get past first class cricket, in the case of Boam that was probably soul crushing as he had been seen as "a chosen child" from high school onwards. He wasn't good enough to play for NZ so quit out. Austin Smellie got replaced ultimately by Ronchi and in the case of Brodie, late twenties, realising he probably wasn't going to make it so looked into building himself a career to get on with his life.

I personally think it's more worrying if you're losing guys on the fringes of first class cricket who had the potential to go big, rather than guys within first class cricket who were just average. Mark Turner from Parnell comes to mind as a guy that was a big loss for Auckland. He had a number of dominant seasons at premier cricket level, was scoring runs in the Auckland A side and never got a chance, had a drop of form, a drop of passion and quit all forms of cricket basically. That's a loss, because we don't know how good he potentially could've been.

In any case, Wellington have the same issue that ND struggled with. They're not turning over enough of their older players, meaning they don't know what their youth talent pool is like. ND lost a tonne of players either through quitting cricket or moving to another region due to players like Aldridge and Arnel who were amazing at first class level but had no potential above that.

Wow, now there's a name I haven't heard in a while, always wondered what happened to him. I remember playing against that Parnell side, with the likes of Chris Martin and Dave Houpapa as well. I also have to agree with your point about Boam having been given opportunities, once you hit that under 19/ A level there's a great deal of self sufficiency required to take that next step and stay there, some are cut for it, some are not.

 

[brockley]

I think 1 of the Cachopa brothers' played 1 Futures cup game for South Australia,like J Donnelly did,whatever happened to Donnelly.
Yeh the Cachopa brothers' been around,wish the other 2 well with their future,don't commend mercenaries as to the other brother.
Tama Canning is another 1 and Grant Elliot.

 

[NZTailender]

Cachopa shifting to England not a surprise,the Cachopa's born S Africa,played under 19 for NZ,lived in Australia a while in Adelaide,played cricket in Darwin.
But i don't feel for NZ's loss how many Aussies and South Africans played in NZ domestic cricket,and how many have gone onto play for NZ.

Mmm, I think you're over-estimating this 'loss', if it does turn out to be a 'defection'.

 

[Flem274*]

tama canning packing a sad and leaving did a lot for nz because it meant someone could get a game for auckland who wouldn't turn up hungover.