Given it’s the time of year for messages to the North Pole under the heading “Dear Santa”, maybe the Black Caps’ list should start with the urgent need for an off-field boss.

With the 32-run win over Pakistan, the first in more than a year, the team are on the cusp of returning to a semblance of success on the stage all good sides are measured - test matches.

The return of Shane Bond’s venom, the wilyness of Chris Martin, the crisp strokes of Ross Taylor and the all-round cunning of Daniel Vettori mean the team have incumbent talent. Vettori was delighted with the victory and with good reason.

But, even though the win was a good one, with character and doggedness, let’s wait before we give ourselves totally over to the illusion of a rosy future.

There are severe deficiencies, particularly in the batting. Can Daniel Flynn make it as a No3, averaging 21.50 in the position since his promising start of 95 against the West Indies a year ago?

Will New Zealand be able to return to an era where Flynn doesn’t have to think about striding out to bat when the ball is still brand new - having only touched the pitch, the stumps or the edge of a bat and a member of the slip cordon’s hands - due to a lapse in an opener’s concentration? Is Jesse Ryder, a man blessed with sensational hand-eye co-ordination, capable of a prolonged career or will a lack of fitness or discipline get the better of him?

There was enough in the dismissals of batsmen like Flynn, Grant Elliott, Peter Fulton, and even Taylor and Vettori himself to suggest that more help would not go amiss.

In Vettori’s era as skipper, with coaches John Bracewell and Andy Moles, there have been 22 tests with five wins - three against Bangladesh, one against England and yesterday’s Read more…

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As fate would have it, on the day Ireland announced they would formally apply to the ICC for full-member status, New Zealand gave them every reason to feel confident. They couldn’t do any worse, could they?

You can almost see the Irish delegation compiling a DVD nasty of New Zealand’s 138-run rout at the hands of Pakistan in the Abu Dhabi desert as evidence for inclusion.

It was Ireland, after all, who sent the Pakistanis packing from the 2007 World Cup.

New Zealand’s loss yesterday has little relevance in the grand scheme of things - just another one-day international in a crowded calendar - but it has rubbed out much of the goodwill accrued from their run to the final of the Champions Trophy in South Africa last month.

Fingers have predictably pointed in the direction of the coach, or lack thereof. New Zealand comfortably accounted for the same opposition one month ago with Andy Moles at the helm, although that argument conveniently ignores the fact that Vettori was effectively running the cutter at that point, Moles having lost the confidence of the dressing room.

In fact, the whole dressing room strife as a hurdle to success argument was kneecapped by Shahid Afridi, the Pakistan allrounder who put the shake into Sheikh Zayed Stadium.

This is the same Afridi who had recently dominated headlines in Pakistan because of his supposed rift with captain Younis Khan over (if you believe the desert telegraph) his desire to be one-day captain.

Yesterday he smote 70 from 50 deliveries, then came within an inch of a hat-trick when befuddling New Zealand’s lower middle order. All that controversy must have really played havoc with his “head space”.

No, the coaching debacle is too convenient a scapegoat. The real reason for the calamitous performance was that when the blowtorch was applied NZ’s batsmen again melted Read more…

Administrator PAK vs NZ Aaron Redmond, Abu Dhabi, Andy Moles, Brendon McCullum, Champions Trophy, ICC, Jesse Ryder, Mohammad Aamer, New Zealand, Pakistan, Saeed Ajmal, Shahid Afridi, Sheikh Zayed Stadium, South Africa, Twenty20, Umar Gul, Younis Khan