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Academy director happy at end of tough playing programme Lynn McConnell - 15 November 2001
New Zealand Cricket Academy director Dayle Hadlee was happy with the programme his charges of 2001 endured at the end of their year at the High Performance Centre at Lincoln University. The side had a full programme of matches against, Otago, Central Districts and Auckland of the New Zealand associations, and the Australian and Queensland Academies, all played at Lincoln. "We provided a challenging playing programme. Some of the players demonstrated their talents, others have quite a lot of work to do," he said. The intake this year was slightly younger than earlier groups but it had responded well to the demands of the course. The high points of the playing programme had been the performances against Otago, the one-day victory over Auckland and the comprehensive performances against the Queenslanders. The first three one-dayers against Australia were disappointing because the side had under-achieved, he said. The side had been affected by the unsettled nature of the team in the games with the constantly changing personnel due to the bowling problems the side experienced. "The culture was forever changing but it has to be said the Australians played very well," he said. In reviewing the year, Hadlee said there was work that needed to be done on the pre-Academy screening of players. The players this year, who were affected by injury had been more than satisfied by the efforts made to improve their situations. "Many of the injuries were extremely well-managed but some are more on-going," he said. One of particular concern affects the leading player of the intake, wicket-keeper/batsman Brendon McCullum. He has a chronic knee injury and he won't be keeping wickets this season. His injury is being monitored so that it can be used as a point of comparison for the longer term treatment of the problem. If the knee improves, he will keep wickets in the last game of the year to see if there is a reaction which will show whether the injury is related to wicket-keeping. McCullum had been the stand out player of the year while Central Districts batsman Jamie How looked extremely promising although still troubled by inconsistency. Canterbury's Wade Cornelius was by far the pick of the pace bowlers in the intake and Wellington's Luke Woodcock surprised with the progress he made as a left-arm spinner. His work ethic had been outstanding and he had also benefited from having Mike Shrimpton available to work with him at the Academy. The injuries suffered by the pace bowlers were frustrating because none of them were the same. One player had a stress fracture. Another had a muscular problem, another a leg injury and another a side strain. The workload of the players had all been monitored and they were all on track to recover. Hadlee said the most important thing with the bowlers was ensuring they had safe actions. Statistics from the end of season games were: Multi-day matches: (Two two-dayers v Otago, two three-dayers v Commonwealth Bank Cricket Academy, one three-dayer v Auckland, one four-dayer v Queensland Academy of Sport) Batting
Bowling
One-day matches: (One v Central Districts, four v Commonwealth Bank Cricket Academy, one v Auckland)
Batting
Bowling
Note: averages do not include performances by Pryor, Mills and Hefford when playing against the Academy for Otago, Auckland and Central Districts, respectively.
© CricInfo
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