Urgent action over the state of the country's spin bowling is being considered by New Zealand Cricket.

The quality of spin bowling available in New Zealand has been of concern for some years but the situation now requires drastic action.

New Zealand Cricket's operations manager John Reid said the evidence from Under-17 and Under-19 tournaments offered no immediate hope of improvement.

"We should be promoting a culture in our game where spin bowlers are appreciated," he said.

Reid said he was continually frustrated in age-group cricket when spin bowlers were taken off when things got tight in games only to be replaced by quicker bowlers. The spinners were not helped by quality, or even understanding, field placing.

"The game itself is not providing support for spin bowlers at the 14-19 age level.

"Spinners traditionally take longer to develop," he said.

The crisis facing spin bowling was under discussion by NZC at the moment and there was a good chance that a Spin New Zealand targeted programme would be introduced.

While a bowler like Glen Sulzberger had done well on two A tours now, to England last year and India this year, he had not performed so well in New Zealand domestic cricket.

And first-class cricket in New Zealand was desperately short of spin bowlers.

"We need to see the development of a coaching and support network for spinners, a network of coaching that is better than we have now.

"On the other side, batsmen would benefit from being exposed to more spin bowling as well because we traditionally do not play spin well," he said.

Reid was also concerned at the standard of wicket-keeping.

While 'keepers were competent at first-class level, the strength of numbers of wicket-keeper-batsmen was not strong.

"We could do with greater depth in that area. We have been well served over the last two decades by world-class 'keepers in Ian Smith and Adam Parore. We have been lucky.

"But there are less to choose from than we would like," he said.

Reid said one of the reasons two teams were fielded by associations in regional age-group tournaments was to expose more young players in the wicket-keeping area, not just to give more batsmen a chance.

© CricInfo