One-dayers 'should be avoided’ after tow

Press, 27 January 1988, Page 64

One-dayers 'should be avoided’ after tow

By

KEVIN TUTTY

Future New Zealand cricket teams which tour Australia should avoid playing one-day series immediately after a normal tour, said Alby Duckmanton, the manager of the New Zealand team which returned home from Australia yesterday. Mr Duckmanton said in Christchurch that the tours needed to be separate. “In future teams should return home for a couple of weeks rest and it would also allow the selectors to name new players,” he said.

The New Zealand team took a tremendous amount out of itself on the final day of the third test in Melbourne when it narrowly failed to square the three match test series. “We had 40deg of heat

that day and from there we played in a series of one-day games with the temperatures in the high 30s and low 40s. “After several tense games in that type of heat the players never really recovered.” Mr Duckmanton said that circumstances had combined so that the oneday series had to be jammed on the end of the test series.

“The players had the World Cup, followed by the test series, and with England starting its tour here early we had to fit the one-day series in earlier.”

In spite of some incidents Mr Duckmanton said the tour had been a good one. “We were done by the toss in the first test in Brisbane. Two years ago we won the toss and

the test in Brisbane. In the third test in Melbourne we were done by an umpiring decision.”

Mr Duckmanton said the final hour of the Melbourne test virtually stopped Australia. “It was like the Melbourne Cup was on.”

Commenting on the crowd behaviour in the latter stages of the tour, Mr Duckmanton said the last two games in Sydney and Melbourne had been quite good. “But what grated was the members in Brisbane and Hobart joining the abuse directed at Richard Hadlee. It was a shame because you like to think that Australians appreciate sport, and I thought Richard Hadlee on his last tour might have commanded more respect.”