Anton Devcich: Former Black Cap on the revitalisation and revamping of domestic T20 cricket

Moves are underway to investigate how domestic T20 cricket might be revamped here in New Zealand. 

Among the suggestions being put forward are a franchise based T20 league, similar to those of many other Tier 1 cricket nations, a New Zealand team entering the Australian Big Bash competition, and a refresh and reinvigoration of our current Super Smash competition. 

Former Black Cap and vastly experienced white ball cricketer, Anton Devcich joined Piney to discuss the measures NZ Cricket needs to take to breathe life back into our domestic T20 scene. 

In regards to a franchise based league, Devcich 's not entirely sure how well it would work, but he knows that a significant chunk of change would need to be forked out to any team involved. 

LISTEN ABOVE 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Weekend Sport podcast with Jason Vine
from Newstalk ZEDB.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Moves are underway to investigate how domestic T twenty cricket
might be revamped here in New Zealand. New Zealand Cricket
have asked consultants Deloitte to analyze potential options for the
future of twenty twenty cricket in this country. Among the
suggestions being put forward are a franchise based T twenty League,

(00:33):
similar to what exists in most other Tier one cricket nations,
a New Zealand team entering the Australian Big Bash competition,
or a refresh and reinvigoration of our current Super Smash competition.
All Rounder Anton Devsitch enjoyed a long and successful domestic
career with Northern Districts, represented New Zealand in both white

(00:55):
ball formats and played a huge amount of TEA twenty cricket,
including time in the Australian Big Bash, the Caribbean Premier
League and Pakistan Super League, as well as our own
Super Smash competition. Anton devisit is with us. Anton, thanks
for your time this afternoon. First of all, does our
domestic T twenty comp need a revamp.

Speaker 3 (01:15):
Yeah, it's a good question. It's a tough one. I mean,
I think the quality of the games and stuff are
really good in terms of the standard of play and
all those things. I think the one thing that it
probably struggles to attract is as big numbers at the games.
And I guess that's a number of factors, scheduling times,

(01:39):
you know, all those things that come into it can
affect that. Yeah, But ins in terms of cricket itself,
I think it's you know, compared to the other competitions. Personally,
I didn't find a massive difference between the standard. It
was more so just different styles that that different teams played.

Speaker 2 (01:58):
What's your view on the Super Smash and how good
a job it does of preparing our players for international
T twenty cricket.

Speaker 3 (02:09):
Yeah, yeah, it has its place. I I think the
thing that it probably lacks is the variety of players.
You know, when you get into the international stage and
you're playing the likes of Angladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka,
who who tend to produce unique cricketers, let's say, in

(02:30):
the way they play the game, we're a little bit
shouted by that. We're very traditional with the way we
play the game with T twenty cricket, and with the
domestic competition structured the way it is, we tend to
be playing the same players week and week out, so
we know them like the back of our hand. So
in that sense, I think, I think it prepares players,

(02:52):
but not necessarily prepares them for international cricket with a
variety of different styles of players that they're about to
come up against.

Speaker 2 (03:01):
What a franchise based T twenty league in New Zealand work?

Speaker 3 (03:07):
You are? Oh my, I'm not entirely sure. I think
you know, depending on how the structured and stuff like that.
From minus standing, one of the big big things is
the time time difference and the time zones that the
competition will be played in. And let's say India, for example,
who i'd imagine would be a large market. If you

(03:32):
played like a two or three o'clock. Three o'clock game,
for example, it's probably mid morning over there. So I'm
not sure how valuable it would be in terms of
commercial commercial the commercial side.

Speaker 1 (03:44):
So.

Speaker 3 (03:46):
And it just it would also depend on how they
structured structured the teams. With a year allowed overseas players,
how many of you allowed all those types of things.

Speaker 2 (03:56):
By the sounds of one of the proposals or the
proposal i've heard, it would be three overseas players per
team and the rest would be New Zealand players. So
if that was the guideline, how much of a success
or thus success would rely on quality players being attracted here?

Speaker 3 (04:15):
Yeah, well quite us with the quality player has been
with them coming to the competition, you're going to have
to fork out for the man. They're not going to
come for small money like they did back in the
day when the Champions League was there, you know, about
seven or eight years ago, when the Champions League competition

(04:35):
was still around. The carrot of going to the Champions
League and earning really good money if you did well
was enough to get some really high quality players over
But without that and schedules and competing with the Big
Bash in that time zone that same time of the year, sorry,
in the December January period, the money would have to

(04:57):
be quite significantly boosted, I'd imagine.

Speaker 2 (05:00):
And outside of the money, how attractive a proposition do
you think a month of cricket and the New Zealand
summer would be to an overseas player, given you know,
the other things on off, they hear a safe place
to bring their family if they wanted to that sort
of thing.

Speaker 3 (05:14):
Oh, absolutely, you know that's that's a huge attraction. Yeah.
You no one ever says a bad word about their
time in New Zealand and put the people of New
Zealand look after, look after whoever whoever's over here, and
they can kind of escape from So we're talking about
a bigger Them player or we're a big English player.

(05:35):
You can kind of escape and do normal things without
being tested by the public. So I'd imagine it'd be
you know, there would be an element of doing that
as well.

Speaker 2 (05:46):
When you were playing in the various franchise competitions that
you did, did you always feel financially secure?

Speaker 3 (05:54):
Not particularly, particularly when you had to New Zealand Cricket.
They had the rule where if you weren't available for
the Super Smash itself, you weren't you weren't allowed to
take contract, which which which. Now that I'm out of
the game and I've sort of had time to I
guess reflect on that. I think it's probably the right decision.

(06:17):
But not no, you're playing for you're playing for your
your income every every tournament and you know, it's it's
it's high, high level, high stress, and it's quite an
emotional journey to be fair, particularly when you're in the
likes of Bangaldesian, Pakistan and Sri Lanka and you know,
the one thing that you've got to do is play

(06:37):
good cricket and it just happens that you're not. It
can be pretty lonely, a lonely space.

Speaker 2 (06:43):
And you know, obviously there's going to be a lot
of key He was involved in a in a franchise
based T twenty league. If it comes to pass, how
attractive a proposition do you think that would be to
a New Zealand player, you know, playing in a franchise
league in their own country with overseas players and as
opposed to what they're currently involved in in our domestic
super smash.

Speaker 3 (07:04):
Well, I think it's just a variety, variety of different
players that you're going to play up against and with
the one thing that I can take out of franchise
cricket and my hand on hard I can say was
the best thing for me was rubbing shoulders with different
players from all over the world and understanding their style
of T twenty cricket. It's like I said a little

(07:25):
bit earlier. All these competitions in terms of skill sets
are relatively similar, but they all play slightly different style.
You go to the CPL and they're more boundary orientated
than you get up for the Pukstan Super League, and
your ones and twos and your play of spin needs
to be much more effective. And then Australia, the grounds

(07:47):
are a bigger square than what they are straight, so
there's a lot more a lot more of the bowlers
going through sort of your chest region. So it's just
trying to pick up the different varieties, you know, As
I said, like these domestic players tend to play the
same guys a week in week out, and that can
get a little bit monotonous, I'd say, And it's really

(08:13):
hard to try and crowd a rivalry between different teams
because you find yourself playing with one another or against
each other more often than not. So yeah, I think
I think that's one of the big things is how
do we how do we do this tournament if it
goes ahead, and how do we get the most out
of our players learning from these these superstars and hopefully it.

Speaker 2 (08:34):
Attracts what's your view on the concept of a new
Zealand team entering the Australian Big Bash.

Speaker 3 (08:41):
Well, it's always been It's always been talked about, hasn't it.
I mean, for me, the Big Bash was one of
the coolest tournaments to play in because it's it's marketing,
its heights, it's just just it's unmatched. The question I'd
ask is if we did enter the competition with our
New Zealand players then become locals for other teams and

(09:03):
you know they'd say where we had an North Island
South team and there would would our local players be
able to play for the Renegades or the Thunder or
another team as a local, and just how it will work,
because I think if that was the case, obviously money
talks when it comes to that side of things. And

(09:24):
would our teams be competitive enough if we had our
best players playing for other Big Bash teams.

Speaker 2 (09:31):
And just back to our own competition to finish Anton
Do you think doing nothing is an option? Just just
rolling out the Super Smash as it is at the moment,
Summer on summer.

Speaker 3 (09:45):
I think, yeah, I can't. I can't answer that, And
I mean, will you look at our Black capsite and
you know it's a relatively competitive T twenty outfit, and
some would say that the Super Smash is doing its
job in terms of producing producing cricketers that can competit
that level. The question I have as if we don't,

(10:07):
if we did do something, how good could we be?
Could we be world champions more often than not? And
could we compete more often? I think I think it's
definitely lacking something. I'm not quite sure what it is,
whether it's the grounds that we play out, or the
time of year or the scheduling. In terms of that,

(10:27):
you know, I don't see a lot of points playing
point playing on a Sunday at seven pm when kids
have got to get the school on a Monday, because
those are the people we want to attract. We want
to attract kids to the game and get a following
basically and have kids want it hounding their mums and
dads to go down to the cricket every week.

Speaker 2 (10:47):
Indeed, hey An Tom, thanks mate, great to get your insight.
Really appreciate you taking that call. Anton Devsit's their former
black cap in both T twenty and fifty over cricket
and a huge participant in T twenty cricket around the place,
including in a number of franchise leagues, the Aussie Big
Bash being one of those.

Speaker 1 (11:05):
For more from Weekends Sport with Jason Fine, listen live
to News Talk set B weekends from midday, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio