Cricket Development
New Zealand Cricket has established High Performance Cricket training centre based at Lincoln University. It also operates a grassroots development programme for school children called 'MILO Kiwi Cricket'. John Wright, former NZ opening batsman, was appointed acting high performance manager for NZC in November 2007 before taking up the Head Coach position in December 2010.
Former Australian Coach John Buchanan was appointed as NZC Director of Cricket in May 2011 as the architect of our new high performance programme. He will perform a number of key duties including the establishment of clear and consistent national coaching philosophies, implement a talent identification programme and oversee the Selection Panel.
New Zealand has many private cricket academies. The Bracewell Cricket Academy based at Rathkeale College is one of the largest cricket academies, providing an Overseas Cricket Development Programme, a Pre-Season Coaching Camp and a Festival of Cricket.
There are over 100,000 registered cricketers in New Zealand. By way of comparison, Australia and the UK have around 500,000 each. According to Mark O'Neill, New Zealand's batting coach from 2007-09, the competition at club level in NZ is nowhere near as intense as in Australia.
"In Sydney there are 20 first grade teams, each club has five grades. To get to first grade you've got to be a friggin' good player and once you get there the competition is very, very fierce. Unfortunately it's not the same standard . Competition is everything and the only way the New Zealand guys are going to get that is to play the world's best players."
Read more about this topic: New Zealand Cricket
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