June 18, 2024 • 11 mins
The Black Caps' disastrous T20 World Cup campaign is finally over.
They've smashed Papua New Guinea but unfortunately didn't win enough games to advance to the Super 8 stage.
Former Black Caps coach Mike Hesson spoke to D'Arcy Waldegrave on Sportstalk about what went so wrong.
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sports Talk podcast with Darcy Wildergrave
from newstalk ZEDB, but right.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Now our news Talk ZB by former Black Cap coach
Mike Hessen. Mike, welcome to the show. I trust you
well after we've been away for quite some time, haven't you.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
Yeah, always nice to be back, so yeah, yeah, pleasure.
So it's a shame where we're talking about a World
Cup which we're not involved in anymore. But sometimes, yeah,
sometimes that happens, doesn't it. We've done at seven in
a row, so I guess we have to crash out sometimes.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
It doesn't make it any easier. And I suppose when
you look back and you look at the team that's there,
this was not a poor team. These are very good
professional cricketers, like they'd be hurting more than we are.
I suppose. First up, can you put your finger on
what didn't quite go right for the black Caps over
there in the windys.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
Oh, look, there was a number of factors. I mean,
just going back to your original portum in trimp Bolt
was first of him and he thought that it was
probably one of the best T twenty squads he's been
involved with heading into a World Cup. So clearly they
were confident and there's no doubt even just listening to
them speak at the end of the World Cup they
are absolutely devastated it, you know, and not carrying on
and going as far as they they'd like to go.
(01:17):
So look, I mean the batting is probably the main thing,
isn't it. I mean it's a tough place to go,
the West Indies, the even in America. The pictures have
been variable, to say the least. And I guess when
you're arrive and so many batsmen aren't in great touch,
it's hard to hit the ground running and we certainly
didn't hit the ground running with the bat that's for sure.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Well, everybody's on the same deck, can't they. I suppose
that argument always gets raised everyone's dealing with the same conditions.
Or is that too simplastic MinC.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
No, it's not.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
It's just that if you're like if you were hadn't
played a lot of cricket and you went to India
and you found yourself on a flat one and you
could train on flat pitchures, you could easily find form.
Whereas if you do that and you haven't played a
lot of cricket, and then you go to the West Indies,
where you know you can't really train and the pitches
are up and down. It makes it really challenging to
find any of rhythm. That said, yeah, you're right. The
(02:09):
opposition absolutely, they you know, they have to plan the
same surface. But to be fair, both the opposition those
first two games had some warnut games as well and
actually arrive with a with a bit of form under
their belt and a bit of time in the middle.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
There's been a lot of conversation around the lack of
preparation for varying reasons through the black Caps side. Is
that an easy enough target to say this is why
things didn't work out, The team simply weren't prepared.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
I don't think it's just like that, As I said,
I think you've arrived at a tournament where you've had
a number of your players haven't from a batting point
of view, you know, a number of your batsmen haven't
played any cricket at all for two three months in
some instances. Now, that's hard to just come out of bat,
you know, and with some rhythm, and we saw came
Williamson do that a couple of times. But as I
alluded to before, they were on very good surfaces. If
(02:57):
you if you're come out of no cricket to come
on to a wicket, that's really challenging. As I said,
you just can't find your rhythm. And New Zealand had
to be fair. You know, Russian probably had one score
in India and he was probably played the most amount
of cricket other than other than Darryl Mitchell. Outside of that,
you Finnellens, your Conways, you Williamson's even you Glenn Phillips.
Those guys hadn't batted in a game for some of
(03:20):
them three months now. To think that you're just going
to be able to rock up against Afghanistan in Guyana
and be able to turn it on, it's just not
going to happen. And you know, I'm sure they were
aware of that. I'm just not sure what options they
had in terms of alternative arrangements.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
The scheduling does spring up an interesting point, doesn't it?
Around the dominance of all of those T twenty leagues,
specifically the IPL and the way they've wedged this World
Cup in. Do you think ICC could have done better
as far as where this could put in so teams
actually had a decent running or.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
Oh look, I think most teams were organized warm up games.
I mean even Australia played with I think seven or
eight players because they had so many returning from IPL
or were involved in the finals or whatever. So I
mean that happens at every World Cup. There are always
logistical challenges of how you can get your squad there,
whether they're playing in England, IPL or whatever it might be,
(04:16):
so you know, those are not new. I guess the
difference for the West Indies is that, as I said,
the practice pitchers are so inadequate that it's not like
you can turn up and do your work off the park.
And that's where you know, size like Australia were pretty
much all of that batting lineup have been playing every
game in the i PL. You know, to just plug
and play straight into a World Cup is pretty straightforward
(04:38):
in that instance.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
So even a couple of warm up games probably wouldn't
have helped. I suppose you look at the form of
the players through the IPL, but again that's not their
decision of the bat or not, unless of course they dominate,
in which case they get put in. So it's a
perfect storm, isn't it.
Speaker 3 (04:55):
Mike, Oh look, it's just that's just the reality of
we have England tours as well, often that are straight
after the IPL. So you know, New Zealand Cricketer have
done really well to keep players engaged by allowing them
the IPU window and that hence that's why we don't
have is too many players go down the Trent Bolt
route at the moment. So New Zealand Cricket have been
aware of that and there are always challenges in terms
(05:17):
of building up for those series. But I think one
or two warm up games in the Western he would
have made a massive difference. I mean, you look at
Devin Conway and you look at the form that he
was in today compared to where he was the first
couple of games. You know, that's distinctly different, even on
a really tough surface. So it's just how you're able
to find them and the flexibility that you can create.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
So that was then this is now looking forward for
New Zealand Cricket. Plainly, knee jerk responses are not ideal.
You've got to ruminate over what happened and where to now.
A concept that's been floated quite a lot of the
last couple of years is separate coaching sides, for the
T twenty side, for the One day internationals, for the
(05:55):
Test team, mostly Mike. It's been said we simply haven't
got a big enough pool to do that. Looking at
what happened back in the World Cup, is there may
be extra strength behind that concept now that maybe does
have to be separated and have specialist players.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
Oh, look, I don't think so. I mean, our best
players are still have best players. I think that's you know,
you can see that with all the teams around the world.
I mean it's not like we don't have more than
some of the other bigger nations. So I think it's
just unrealistic. It's also unrealistic to think that, you know,
players don't have the ambition to play more than one
format as well, and that's actually going to make them
be better players as well. So look, I don't think
(06:30):
there needs to be a need reaction. I mean the
reality is we lost two games of cricket against two
very good T twenty sides, I mean Afghanistan and Guyana.
That's the one place in the world you don't want
to play them, and they completely outplayed us and looked
well prepared. The West Indies we had them on the ropes.
It was pretty much one partnership that we couldn't get
rid of schaffein Rutherford. So it's two games of T twenty.
(06:52):
So I certainly don't think you need to have a
massive revamp, but you still need to review it, and
you still need to challenge the process of how you
got to that point. I certainly don't think it's you know,
it's a train smashed by any stretch.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
You're a former coach, Mike kissing you, and it's like
when teams don't go right, everyone's looking for a scapegoat,
and it's easy to sack the coach than the entire team.
Do you think Gary Steed's still on solid ground?
Speaker 3 (07:14):
Oh, Stity has done a wonderful job since taking over
and sort of towards the back end of two eighteen,
so I think that I'm not even sure how long
his contract is. But yeah, it's a bit of an
easy target, really, isn't it that, As you said, the
team doesn't have a great tournament and all of a
sudden the coach is under the pump. So I think
you review Gary Steed like you review everybody else. You know,
you look at the good and the bad and you.
(07:35):
You know, there's certainly a heck of a lot more
good than there is bad.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
Let's look at the positives, because I think it's important
that you take some of the good out of that. Look,
it's not been a great performance. It's been a decade
of fantastic performances from the Black Caps across a number
of formats. So let's try and find what was good
out of this and push that forward. Is there anything
that shines to you, Mike Hessen.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
Oh, I think the bowling was exceptional. I mean, I
think the probably one of the one of the problems
is that the best part of the bowling was Bolton
Saudi and they're both obviously nearing the ends rather than
the start of their career. So you know, those two
showed their class, and I think New Zealand looked way
better once Tim Souley came back into that lineup, especially
(08:17):
in those conditions. You know, Mitch Staton is very good
and he continues to be one of the best in
the world in this format. Lackie Ferguson is sort of
back to his best. You know, we saw an exceptional
performance today, but even throughout the tournament he's been good
and that was a bit of a worry heading into it.
He hadn't been in vintage form, so that bowling attack's
been good. Glenn Phillips, you know, is performing a really
(08:39):
tough role and he's young in his development, but I
think he's showed some really good signs. Yeah, I mean
outside of that, you know, the batting group really struggled
as a group. I don't think there's any doubting that,
and I think they will love to get back to
New Zealand or to park Staff for that Champions Trophy
and play on some flat wickets where they can really
show their skills.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
You mentioned Trent Bolt. What an astonishing career that man
has had. When you look back when he first started
he got used as a bowling machine for Australia. I
know that's a long time ago now, but blossomed into
one of our greats. It looks like he's not going
to be involved anymore, although you never know, but I
think he's called time on his international career. You look
back and a Fleet, you've worked with him a lot.
(09:20):
That guy is quite something else. What a standout for
New Zealand.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
Yeah, an exceptional career and you know he deserves all
the bullets and recognition that he gets. I mean, remember
when Trent first came on board with New Zealand, he
was an exceptional new ball bowler, but outside of that,
you know, he was quite limited and the skills he had,
and you know, he's continued to work and develop over
his game, and in those sort of fifteen sixteen years
(09:44):
that he's been involved in the International Games, he's now
a better bowler than than what he has at any
stage throughout his career, probably a more complete bowler. He
might have been quicker at certain times, but he's the
most complete bowler at the moment that he can be,
and we will really miss him. You know, that combination
Bolt Soudi, as I said, with the ability they swing
(10:07):
at the opposite direction so all the cross breezes at
all the grounds around the world. They're just an awesome combination.
So we might find some other right armors, but I
can't see any other left arms that swing the ball
into the right hand is sort of floating around New
Zealand at the moment, so hopefully hopefully one of them
pops up. But he will be He will be missed,
and we certainly cheerish the time that we had him.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
And finally, Mike Hesslan, thanks so much for your time.
As always, how do you think it's worked for American cricket?
Is the traction there? Do you think this has succeeded
so far? I know we're not to the point at end,
but this is a big part of this tournament being
played in the West Indies and the States to try
and get some eyeballs. Is it working well?
Speaker 3 (10:47):
I think it is. I think you just have to
look at some social media posts around schools, not from
people doing it to gain traction, just from kids that
are actually just loving the game. And I guess when
you start to get school kids talking about the T
twenty World carp And and America, then that's that's as
good as it gets, really and that's how we got
(11:08):
involved in the game in the first place. So I
think it's exciting opportunity and hopefully a real good chance
to grow the game.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
And on that we'll let you get on with your day.
Mike Hesan, always a pleasure. Thanks very much for yours,
Thanks body, cheers bye.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
For more from Sports Talk, listen live to news talks
that'd be from seven pm weekdays, or follow the podcast
on iHeartRadio,
You're listening to the Sports Talk podcast with Darcy Wildergrave
from newstalk ZEDB, but right.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Now our news Talk ZB by former Black Cap coach
Mike Hessen. Mike, welcome to the show. I trust you
well after we've been away for quite some time, haven't you.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
Yeah, always nice to be back, so yeah, yeah, pleasure.
So it's a shame where we're talking about a World
Cup which we're not involved in anymore. But sometimes, yeah,
sometimes that happens, doesn't it. We've done at seven in
a row, so I guess we have to crash out sometimes.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
It doesn't make it any easier. And I suppose when
you look back and you look at the team that's there,
this was not a poor team. These are very good
professional cricketers, like they'd be hurting more than we are.
I suppose. First up, can you put your finger on
what didn't quite go right for the black Caps over
there in the windys.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
Oh, look, there was a number of factors. I mean,
just going back to your original portum in trimp Bolt
was first of him and he thought that it was
probably one of the best T twenty squads he's been
involved with heading into a World Cup. So clearly they
were confident and there's no doubt even just listening to
them speak at the end of the World Cup they
are absolutely devastated it, you know, and not carrying on
and going as far as they they'd like to go.
(01:17):
So look, I mean the batting is probably the main thing,
isn't it. I mean it's a tough place to go,
the West Indies, the even in America. The pictures have
been variable, to say the least. And I guess when
you're arrive and so many batsmen aren't in great touch,
it's hard to hit the ground running and we certainly
didn't hit the ground running with the bat that's for sure.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Well, everybody's on the same deck, can't they. I suppose
that argument always gets raised everyone's dealing with the same conditions.
Or is that too simplastic MinC.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
No, it's not.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
It's just that if you're like if you were hadn't
played a lot of cricket and you went to India
and you found yourself on a flat one and you
could train on flat pitchures, you could easily find form.
Whereas if you do that and you haven't played a
lot of cricket, and then you go to the West Indies,
where you know you can't really train and the pitches
are up and down. It makes it really challenging to
find any of rhythm. That said, yeah, you're right. The
(02:09):
opposition absolutely, they you know, they have to plan the
same surface. But to be fair, both the opposition those
first two games had some warnut games as well and
actually arrive with a with a bit of form under
their belt and a bit of time in the middle.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
There's been a lot of conversation around the lack of
preparation for varying reasons through the black Caps side. Is
that an easy enough target to say this is why
things didn't work out, The team simply weren't prepared.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
I don't think it's just like that, As I said,
I think you've arrived at a tournament where you've had
a number of your players haven't from a batting point
of view, you know, a number of your batsmen haven't
played any cricket at all for two three months in
some instances. Now, that's hard to just come out of bat,
you know, and with some rhythm, and we saw came
Williamson do that a couple of times. But as I
alluded to before, they were on very good surfaces. If
(02:57):
you if you're come out of no cricket to come
on to a wicket, that's really challenging. As I said,
you just can't find your rhythm. And New Zealand had
to be fair. You know, Russian probably had one score
in India and he was probably played the most amount
of cricket other than other than Darryl Mitchell. Outside of that,
you Finnellens, your Conways, you Williamson's even you Glenn Phillips.
Those guys hadn't batted in a game for some of
(03:20):
them three months now. To think that you're just going
to be able to rock up against Afghanistan in Guyana
and be able to turn it on, it's just not
going to happen. And you know, I'm sure they were
aware of that. I'm just not sure what options they
had in terms of alternative arrangements.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
The scheduling does spring up an interesting point, doesn't it?
Around the dominance of all of those T twenty leagues,
specifically the IPL and the way they've wedged this World
Cup in. Do you think ICC could have done better
as far as where this could put in so teams
actually had a decent running or.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
Oh look, I think most teams were organized warm up games.
I mean even Australia played with I think seven or
eight players because they had so many returning from IPL
or were involved in the finals or whatever. So I
mean that happens at every World Cup. There are always
logistical challenges of how you can get your squad there,
whether they're playing in England, IPL or whatever it might be,
(04:16):
so you know, those are not new. I guess the
difference for the West Indies is that, as I said,
the practice pitchers are so inadequate that it's not like
you can turn up and do your work off the park.
And that's where you know, size like Australia were pretty
much all of that batting lineup have been playing every
game in the i PL. You know, to just plug
and play straight into a World Cup is pretty straightforward
(04:38):
in that instance.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
So even a couple of warm up games probably wouldn't
have helped. I suppose you look at the form of
the players through the IPL, but again that's not their
decision of the bat or not, unless of course they dominate,
in which case they get put in. So it's a
perfect storm, isn't it.
Speaker 3 (04:55):
Mike, Oh look, it's just that's just the reality of
we have England tours as well, often that are straight
after the IPL. So you know, New Zealand Cricketer have
done really well to keep players engaged by allowing them
the IPU window and that hence that's why we don't
have is too many players go down the Trent Bolt
route at the moment. So New Zealand Cricket have been
aware of that and there are always challenges in terms
(05:17):
of building up for those series. But I think one
or two warm up games in the Western he would
have made a massive difference. I mean, you look at
Devin Conway and you look at the form that he
was in today compared to where he was the first
couple of games. You know, that's distinctly different, even on
a really tough surface. So it's just how you're able
to find them and the flexibility that you can create.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
So that was then this is now looking forward for
New Zealand Cricket. Plainly, knee jerk responses are not ideal.
You've got to ruminate over what happened and where to now.
A concept that's been floated quite a lot of the
last couple of years is separate coaching sides, for the
T twenty side, for the One day internationals, for the
(05:55):
Test team, mostly Mike. It's been said we simply haven't
got a big enough pool to do that. Looking at
what happened back in the World Cup, is there may
be extra strength behind that concept now that maybe does
have to be separated and have specialist players.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
Oh, look, I don't think so. I mean, our best
players are still have best players. I think that's you know,
you can see that with all the teams around the world.
I mean it's not like we don't have more than
some of the other bigger nations. So I think it's
just unrealistic. It's also unrealistic to think that, you know,
players don't have the ambition to play more than one
format as well, and that's actually going to make them
be better players as well. So look, I don't think
(06:30):
there needs to be a need reaction. I mean the
reality is we lost two games of cricket against two
very good T twenty sides, I mean Afghanistan and Guyana.
That's the one place in the world you don't want
to play them, and they completely outplayed us and looked
well prepared. The West Indies we had them on the ropes.
It was pretty much one partnership that we couldn't get
rid of schaffein Rutherford. So it's two games of T twenty.
(06:52):
So I certainly don't think you need to have a
massive revamp, but you still need to review it, and
you still need to challenge the process of how you
got to that point. I certainly don't think it's you know,
it's a train smashed by any stretch.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
You're a former coach, Mike kissing you, and it's like
when teams don't go right, everyone's looking for a scapegoat,
and it's easy to sack the coach than the entire team.
Do you think Gary Steed's still on solid ground?
Speaker 3 (07:14):
Oh, Stity has done a wonderful job since taking over
and sort of towards the back end of two eighteen,
so I think that I'm not even sure how long
his contract is. But yeah, it's a bit of an
easy target, really, isn't it that, As you said, the
team doesn't have a great tournament and all of a
sudden the coach is under the pump. So I think
you review Gary Steed like you review everybody else. You know,
you look at the good and the bad and you.
(07:35):
You know, there's certainly a heck of a lot more
good than there is bad.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
Let's look at the positives, because I think it's important
that you take some of the good out of that. Look,
it's not been a great performance. It's been a decade
of fantastic performances from the Black Caps across a number
of formats. So let's try and find what was good
out of this and push that forward. Is there anything
that shines to you, Mike Hessen.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
Oh, I think the bowling was exceptional. I mean, I
think the probably one of the one of the problems
is that the best part of the bowling was Bolton
Saudi and they're both obviously nearing the ends rather than
the start of their career. So you know, those two
showed their class, and I think New Zealand looked way
better once Tim Souley came back into that lineup, especially
(08:17):
in those conditions. You know, Mitch Staton is very good
and he continues to be one of the best in
the world in this format. Lackie Ferguson is sort of
back to his best. You know, we saw an exceptional
performance today, but even throughout the tournament he's been good
and that was a bit of a worry heading into it.
He hadn't been in vintage form, so that bowling attack's
been good. Glenn Phillips, you know, is performing a really
(08:39):
tough role and he's young in his development, but I
think he's showed some really good signs. Yeah, I mean
outside of that, you know, the batting group really struggled
as a group. I don't think there's any doubting that,
and I think they will love to get back to
New Zealand or to park Staff for that Champions Trophy
and play on some flat wickets where they can really
show their skills.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
You mentioned Trent Bolt. What an astonishing career that man
has had. When you look back when he first started
he got used as a bowling machine for Australia. I
know that's a long time ago now, but blossomed into
one of our greats. It looks like he's not going
to be involved anymore, although you never know, but I
think he's called time on his international career. You look
back and a Fleet, you've worked with him a lot.
(09:20):
That guy is quite something else. What a standout for
New Zealand.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
Yeah, an exceptional career and you know he deserves all
the bullets and recognition that he gets. I mean, remember
when Trent first came on board with New Zealand, he
was an exceptional new ball bowler, but outside of that,
you know, he was quite limited and the skills he had,
and you know, he's continued to work and develop over
his game, and in those sort of fifteen sixteen years
(09:44):
that he's been involved in the International Games, he's now
a better bowler than than what he has at any
stage throughout his career, probably a more complete bowler. He
might have been quicker at certain times, but he's the
most complete bowler at the moment that he can be,
and we will really miss him. You know, that combination
Bolt Soudi, as I said, with the ability they swing
(10:07):
at the opposite direction so all the cross breezes at
all the grounds around the world. They're just an awesome combination.
So we might find some other right armors, but I
can't see any other left arms that swing the ball
into the right hand is sort of floating around New
Zealand at the moment, so hopefully hopefully one of them
pops up. But he will be He will be missed,
and we certainly cheerish the time that we had him.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
And finally, Mike Hesslan, thanks so much for your time.
As always, how do you think it's worked for American cricket?
Is the traction there? Do you think this has succeeded
so far? I know we're not to the point at end,
but this is a big part of this tournament being
played in the West Indies and the States to try
and get some eyeballs. Is it working well?
Speaker 3 (10:47):
I think it is. I think you just have to
look at some social media posts around schools, not from
people doing it to gain traction, just from kids that
are actually just loving the game. And I guess when
you start to get school kids talking about the T
twenty World carp And and America, then that's that's as
good as it gets, really and that's how we got
(11:08):
involved in the game in the first place. So I
think it's exciting opportunity and hopefully a real good chance
to grow the game.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
And on that we'll let you get on with your day.
Mike Hesan, always a pleasure. Thanks very much for yours,
Thanks body, cheers bye.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
For more from Sports Talk, listen live to news talks
that'd be from seven pm weekdays, or follow the podcast
on iHeartRadio,
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Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com