November 26, 2025 • 11 mins
New Zealand's pool for the T20 Cricket World Cup was announced today, with the Kiwis facing off against South Africa, Afghanistan, the UAE and Canada.
But with the T20 World Cup taking place every two years, the World Test Championship taking place every two years and the ODI World Cup happening every four years, fans have wondered if the world of cricket is getting muddied.
Former Black Cap John Bracewell joined D'Arcy to discuss.
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sports Talk podcast with Dancy Wildergrave
from News Talk z'b as.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
It means from before it's coming up tolve and it's
after seven T twenty World Cup a draw was announced.
He said, I find themselves up against South Africa, Afghanistan,
the UA and Canada. She's a muddied old international program.
Every siec and year, it seems some kind of World
Cup out there. T twenty World Cup every couple of years,
(00:34):
World Test Championship runs in its two year cycle, one
Dance National World Cup every four years, the champions Trophy
in between World Cup years. And then of course you
got all the franchise cricket as well, so much cricket
on and when you look at the T twenty franchise
League being played all over the world and dominating, you
(00:54):
can't see the wood for the trees, can you? The
cricket world is becoming airy convoluted. Is there a way
world cricket can make these competitions all work in harmony?
Lovely phrase, isn't it? And this T twenty World Cup
is it actually going to move the needle? Let me
joined now by former black Cap and black Caps head
(01:16):
coach John Bracewell to discuss Hi, John, how are we
going very very well looking ahead to well more ashes cricket.
However long that lasts. I've got no idea the Test
series against the West Indians, and of course the T
twenty World Cup and the teams have just been announced
for it. The schedule, excuse me, has been announced for that.
(01:39):
Our threats come in the form of well Afghanistan and
South Africa.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
All well and.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Good, but I want to look to a bigger picture here,
because John, I looked across this. I looked at all
of the games that bilaterals. They are World Cups and
there are many of them. I thought, how muddied is
international cricket right now? It's really hard to see the
wood for the trees, is it not?
Speaker 4 (02:02):
Yeah, it's muddied, is probably you know, it's a good
enough term. But i'd actually probably talked more in its evolution.
I think it's slightly immature or adolescent in its stage
of growth. T twenty is as evolved at a pretty
rapid white rate in terms of world domination financially in
(02:26):
the game of cricket. Everything else has been questioned. Test
cricket's been questioned so they've had to develop and legitimize
the mace with the World Championship and then the next
chopping bloc or game up for the chopping block was
everybody was asking, is fifty over cricket relevant anymore? And
(02:46):
a lot of these questions are coming about because of
the dominance of the franchise or and the player becoming
the franchise e in World Cricket and a number of
nations their players are finding cricket easier and a lot
more lucrative in the franchise world and that probably in
(03:06):
a nutshell, is the reason why we are asking these
questions because New Zealander caught in between. We have a
number of our best coaches, for example, and our best
players not choosing to take up contracts and taking up
part time contracts or whatever they call them, so they
can actually make a very very sound living in the
(03:31):
franchise e world.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
When you look at all of these different platforms that
can be played, the different characters involved, that the coaches,
the cricketers themselves, administrators, is their room in a calendar
year or maybe even a two year cycle to fit
all of these different variants of the game in this
is t twenty one day international test cricket at an
(03:54):
international level and a franchise level. That's why I use
the term muddy before it's so thick on the ground.
Is there going to be ever a place where we've
got defined lines and we actually know what's going on.
Speaker 4 (04:08):
Yeah, And I think that that's why your terminology of
muddy is actually is reasonably accurate. And the reason for
that is because cricket is very unusual in that we
have three formats. Now, let's think about soccer or football
in the World Cup. You know that we still have
this domination of clubs owning players and releasing players to
(04:28):
go and play either friendlies or World Cup qualifying matches
because the club own the player. The muddiness of cricket
at the moment is we have three formats, but we
also have a number of franchise ows around the world
that players get to go and play in these tournaments.
(04:49):
So look at Manchester United. They own the player and
they release the player. The player doesn't play for any
other teams apart from his country or his club when
his club releases him. So it's not that muddy, if
you know what I mean. But when you have a
tournament in probably three or four countries at a time.
(05:09):
And you have players who are playing in a tournament
and say let's say the United States, the tournament starts
to reveal itself. As you go through the process, the
team looks as though it's going to lose. Often that
player will leave that tournament and go and play in
another tournament, not having even completed the tournament, because he
(05:30):
thinks that tournament's not going to win. He's not going
to win and here therefore he's not going to play
or he's not going to go through to the finals,
so they leave them early. That's the muddiness of it,
is almost the ethical nature of the franchise e and
the franchise or not adding sortied their act out about
who owns who and.
Speaker 3 (05:48):
The loyalty to what.
Speaker 4 (05:51):
There is a real doubt about loyalty at the moment,
both for your country and the franchise.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
Or I think you'd say that the cricketers themselves love
to represent their country, but that's a balance between country
and income, and they get that, so they make themselves
available when they want to be available. Do you look
and you mentioned man, you and you mentioned football. Is
that possibly a model that World Cricket ICC or whoever's
running the place, the BCCI, is that a space they
(06:18):
need to look to in order to maybe clarify what
goes on in international cricket.
Speaker 4 (06:24):
Yeah, and I wonder because if you have a look
at the IPL model, they are starting to look at
a world domination. So they've invested heavily in South Africa,
They've invested heavily in the USA. They are now starting
to invest heavily in the one hundred in England, so
(06:44):
they're starting to buy into those clubs as well. And
then you'll see that some players will be Mumbai Indian
players in all three or four of those tournaments. So
they're starting to invest. And that's why I say it's
sort of in its adolescent stage in terms of its
maturity and its understanding and its evolution.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
We haven't come to grips with it yet, but it's
starting to move to.
Speaker 4 (07:09):
India are dominating everything because they can afford to buy
into it and purchase teams as opposed to players, and
then by that you will end up with your Manchester
United model.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Where does the power sit? Because the money in Indian cricket,
they have the overlords. That's an overarching control, and unlike
the NBA, they don't pay their players much and really
without the players, they don't really go any distance long term.
So does the power long term rest with the players
(07:43):
or is it always going to be in the hands
of the likes of the BCCI of the ICC.
Speaker 4 (07:49):
Well, I think, like anything in its evolution room maturity,
you will get a point where the players getting paid
really well, and then they will eventually start to unionize internationally.
I know that we have you know, we have our
players associations around, but I think that we will get
a unionization of players where they feel as though they
(08:12):
have got a little more control over what they think
may be exploitation. But they've also got to also make
sure that they understand that they're probably being paid better
than they ever would add under any other system at
the moment anyway, and they do get to pick and
choose a little bit. The more India start to own
(08:32):
franchisees or franchise alls, they will own the franchise e
as well, and the players got to be very careful
about that. They still want to keep their independence, but
international teams have to be very careful about that because
they'll get to the stage where the franchise or will
not release their players to the country, and then our
(08:53):
domestic cricket and our international cricket between World Cups is
in real trouble.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
What do you suspect long term, John Bracewell, when you
look at this, because it seems a little fragmented, a
little messy. I love the way you said it is
from kids their adolescents right now. Eventually adolescents learn how
to control their frontal cortex and actually start behaving. Is
it a possibility that they can all sit and live
comfortably together? Because I suggest the amount of cut through
(09:24):
each event is minimized by the amount of different forms
of cricket there are. Is there a happy place eventually?
Speaker 3 (09:33):
I think the happy place at the moment is that
Indian cricket is strong.
Speaker 4 (09:38):
It's getting tested at the moment, I know by South Africa.
I think it was a real concern to see two
day Test cricket played like two games of T twenty.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
As entertaining as it was, it was two days of cricket.
Speaker 4 (09:52):
Of out and out's slogging, and I think that showed
a real immaturity of where the game is at at
the moment. That ability to be able to adjust from
one game to the other and be able to use
some cricket now was completely lacking from both teams.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
Travis, he had got away with slogging one hundred.
Speaker 4 (10:12):
Had he skied the first ball that he hit for six,
everybody would have gone, what an idiot?
Speaker 3 (10:17):
How dumb was that?
Speaker 4 (10:19):
It was his dumbers Brooks shot. There was a dumber
says shot. But he got away with it, and everybody goes, oh,
wasn't that marvelous. But in the end he backed the
way and slogged.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
John, thanks so much for joining us. I got one
last thing for you before you go. We know you
love the game of cricket. Why shouldn't you The upcoming
T twenty World Cup being played over it in India? Surprise, surprise?
Is that going to wobble your needle if you will?
Are you going to pay a great deal of attention
to this or is it just lost in the mire?
Speaker 4 (10:49):
I play a great deal attention it because I'm still
in New Zealand at first, and I like to see
the black Caps. I'm actually a fan of the black
Caps because one they're really good people. I think they're
trying to do really good things. I think they have
an intellect that I admire. And I'm a fan of
of New Zealand sports, so anything that has a tag
(11:09):
of New Zealand Sport.
Speaker 3 (11:10):
On it, I love and I follow.
Speaker 4 (11:13):
So I'm a nationalist and I think that that still
keeps us engaged in the sport. I hardly watch and
follow the IPL because there are so many sort of
IPLs around the world that I don't follow it, but
I follow national teams.
Speaker 3 (11:31):
I still love International National Cricket.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
For more from Sports Talk, listen lived to News Talks.
There'd be from seven pm weekdays, or follow the podcast
on iHeartRadio.
You're listening to the Sports Talk podcast with Dancy Wildergrave
from News Talk z'b as.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
It means from before it's coming up tolve and it's
after seven T twenty World Cup a draw was announced.
He said, I find themselves up against South Africa, Afghanistan,
the UA and Canada. She's a muddied old international program.
Every siec and year, it seems some kind of World
Cup out there. T twenty World Cup every couple of years,
(00:34):
World Test Championship runs in its two year cycle, one
Dance National World Cup every four years, the champions Trophy
in between World Cup years. And then of course you
got all the franchise cricket as well, so much cricket
on and when you look at the T twenty franchise
League being played all over the world and dominating, you
(00:54):
can't see the wood for the trees, can you? The
cricket world is becoming airy convoluted. Is there a way
world cricket can make these competitions all work in harmony?
Lovely phrase, isn't it? And this T twenty World Cup
is it actually going to move the needle? Let me
joined now by former black Cap and black Caps head
(01:16):
coach John Bracewell to discuss Hi, John, how are we
going very very well looking ahead to well more ashes cricket.
However long that lasts. I've got no idea the Test
series against the West Indians, and of course the T
twenty World Cup and the teams have just been announced
for it. The schedule, excuse me, has been announced for that.
(01:39):
Our threats come in the form of well Afghanistan and
South Africa.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
All well and.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Good, but I want to look to a bigger picture here,
because John, I looked across this. I looked at all
of the games that bilaterals. They are World Cups and
there are many of them. I thought, how muddied is
international cricket right now? It's really hard to see the
wood for the trees, is it not?
Speaker 4 (02:02):
Yeah, it's muddied, is probably you know, it's a good
enough term. But i'd actually probably talked more in its evolution.
I think it's slightly immature or adolescent in its stage
of growth. T twenty is as evolved at a pretty
rapid white rate in terms of world domination financially in
(02:26):
the game of cricket. Everything else has been questioned. Test
cricket's been questioned so they've had to develop and legitimize
the mace with the World Championship and then the next
chopping bloc or game up for the chopping block was
everybody was asking, is fifty over cricket relevant anymore? And
(02:46):
a lot of these questions are coming about because of
the dominance of the franchise or and the player becoming
the franchise e in World Cricket and a number of
nations their players are finding cricket easier and a lot
more lucrative in the franchise world and that probably in
(03:06):
a nutshell, is the reason why we are asking these
questions because New Zealander caught in between. We have a
number of our best coaches, for example, and our best
players not choosing to take up contracts and taking up
part time contracts or whatever they call them, so they
can actually make a very very sound living in the
(03:31):
franchise e world.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
When you look at all of these different platforms that
can be played, the different characters involved, that the coaches,
the cricketers themselves, administrators, is their room in a calendar
year or maybe even a two year cycle to fit
all of these different variants of the game in this
is t twenty one day international test cricket at an
(03:54):
international level and a franchise level. That's why I use
the term muddy before it's so thick on the ground.
Is there going to be ever a place where we've
got defined lines and we actually know what's going on.
Speaker 4 (04:08):
Yeah, And I think that that's why your terminology of
muddy is actually is reasonably accurate. And the reason for
that is because cricket is very unusual in that we
have three formats. Now, let's think about soccer or football
in the World Cup. You know that we still have
this domination of clubs owning players and releasing players to
(04:28):
go and play either friendlies or World Cup qualifying matches
because the club own the player. The muddiness of cricket
at the moment is we have three formats, but we
also have a number of franchise ows around the world
that players get to go and play in these tournaments.
(04:49):
So look at Manchester United. They own the player and
they release the player. The player doesn't play for any
other teams apart from his country or his club when
his club releases him. So it's not that muddy, if
you know what I mean. But when you have a
tournament in probably three or four countries at a time.
(05:09):
And you have players who are playing in a tournament
and say let's say the United States, the tournament starts
to reveal itself. As you go through the process, the
team looks as though it's going to lose. Often that
player will leave that tournament and go and play in
another tournament, not having even completed the tournament, because he
(05:30):
thinks that tournament's not going to win. He's not going
to win and here therefore he's not going to play
or he's not going to go through to the finals,
so they leave them early. That's the muddiness of it,
is almost the ethical nature of the franchise e and
the franchise or not adding sortied their act out about
who owns who and.
Speaker 3 (05:48):
The loyalty to what.
Speaker 4 (05:51):
There is a real doubt about loyalty at the moment,
both for your country and the franchise.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
Or I think you'd say that the cricketers themselves love
to represent their country, but that's a balance between country
and income, and they get that, so they make themselves
available when they want to be available. Do you look
and you mentioned man, you and you mentioned football. Is
that possibly a model that World Cricket ICC or whoever's
running the place, the BCCI, is that a space they
(06:18):
need to look to in order to maybe clarify what
goes on in international cricket.
Speaker 4 (06:24):
Yeah, and I wonder because if you have a look
at the IPL model, they are starting to look at
a world domination. So they've invested heavily in South Africa,
They've invested heavily in the USA. They are now starting
to invest heavily in the one hundred in England, so
(06:44):
they're starting to buy into those clubs as well. And
then you'll see that some players will be Mumbai Indian
players in all three or four of those tournaments. So
they're starting to invest. And that's why I say it's
sort of in its adolescent stage in terms of its
maturity and its understanding and its evolution.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
We haven't come to grips with it yet, but it's
starting to move to.
Speaker 4 (07:09):
India are dominating everything because they can afford to buy
into it and purchase teams as opposed to players, and
then by that you will end up with your Manchester
United model.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Where does the power sit? Because the money in Indian cricket,
they have the overlords. That's an overarching control, and unlike
the NBA, they don't pay their players much and really
without the players, they don't really go any distance long term.
So does the power long term rest with the players
(07:43):
or is it always going to be in the hands
of the likes of the BCCI of the ICC.
Speaker 4 (07:49):
Well, I think, like anything in its evolution room maturity,
you will get a point where the players getting paid
really well, and then they will eventually start to unionize internationally.
I know that we have you know, we have our
players associations around, but I think that we will get
a unionization of players where they feel as though they
(08:12):
have got a little more control over what they think
may be exploitation. But they've also got to also make
sure that they understand that they're probably being paid better
than they ever would add under any other system at
the moment anyway, and they do get to pick and
choose a little bit. The more India start to own
(08:32):
franchisees or franchise alls, they will own the franchise e
as well, and the players got to be very careful
about that. They still want to keep their independence, but
international teams have to be very careful about that because
they'll get to the stage where the franchise or will
not release their players to the country, and then our
(08:53):
domestic cricket and our international cricket between World Cups is
in real trouble.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
What do you suspect long term, John Bracewell, when you
look at this, because it seems a little fragmented, a
little messy. I love the way you said it is
from kids their adolescents right now. Eventually adolescents learn how
to control their frontal cortex and actually start behaving. Is
it a possibility that they can all sit and live
comfortably together? Because I suggest the amount of cut through
(09:24):
each event is minimized by the amount of different forms
of cricket there are. Is there a happy place eventually?
Speaker 3 (09:33):
I think the happy place at the moment is that
Indian cricket is strong.
Speaker 4 (09:38):
It's getting tested at the moment, I know by South Africa.
I think it was a real concern to see two
day Test cricket played like two games of T twenty.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
As entertaining as it was, it was two days of cricket.
Speaker 4 (09:52):
Of out and out's slogging, and I think that showed
a real immaturity of where the game is at at
the moment. That ability to be able to adjust from
one game to the other and be able to use
some cricket now was completely lacking from both teams.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
Travis, he had got away with slogging one hundred.
Speaker 4 (10:12):
Had he skied the first ball that he hit for six,
everybody would have gone, what an idiot?
Speaker 3 (10:17):
How dumb was that?
Speaker 4 (10:19):
It was his dumbers Brooks shot. There was a dumber
says shot. But he got away with it, and everybody goes, oh,
wasn't that marvelous. But in the end he backed the
way and slogged.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
John, thanks so much for joining us. I got one
last thing for you before you go. We know you
love the game of cricket. Why shouldn't you The upcoming
T twenty World Cup being played over it in India? Surprise, surprise?
Is that going to wobble your needle if you will?
Are you going to pay a great deal of attention
to this or is it just lost in the mire?
Speaker 4 (10:49):
I play a great deal attention it because I'm still
in New Zealand at first, and I like to see
the black Caps. I'm actually a fan of the black
Caps because one they're really good people. I think they're
trying to do really good things. I think they have
an intellect that I admire. And I'm a fan of
of New Zealand sports, so anything that has a tag
(11:09):
of New Zealand Sport.
Speaker 3 (11:10):
On it, I love and I follow.
Speaker 4 (11:13):
So I'm a nationalist and I think that that still
keeps us engaged in the sport. I hardly watch and
follow the IPL because there are so many sort of
IPLs around the world that I don't follow it, but
I follow national teams.
Speaker 3 (11:31):
I still love International National Cricket.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
For more from Sports Talk, listen lived to News Talks.
There'd be from seven pm weekdays, or follow the podcast
on iHeartRadio.
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