Cricket: 'One bad day': White defends setup

New Zealand Cricket chief executive David White at the University Oval yesterday. Photo by Gerard O'Brien.

New Zealand Cricket chief executive David White was as disappointed as anyone following the Black Caps' humiliating 10-wicket loss to Sri Lanka earlier this week.

The fallout has been brutal, with seemingly everyone harbouring an opinion. Some might feel the criticism has been fair, but others might argue it has been emotive and not particularly helpful.

Some of the finger-pointing and blame-laying might be easy to dismiss, but comments made by former captain and national selector Dion Nash have been harder to ignore.

Nash questioned whether the board of New Zealand Cricket had enough cricketing nous to run the game, and wondered whether the New Zealand Cricket Players' Association was really pulling the strings.

White, who was in Dunedin yesterday to promote the test between the Black Caps and England at the University Oval in March, told the Otago Daily Times NZC felt Nash's comments were wide of the mark.

"I just don't buy into that at all," White said.

"They're [NZCPA] an effective organisation. We have an eight-year master agreement with them that works well and I don't think that is a very sound statement at all.

"In the last few days there has been a lot of anger and fury about the way the team played in the last test match.

"I understand that. To show a lack of resilience after a good bowling day was particularly disappointing."

White, who has been in the job for eight months, inherited the high performance setup which John Buchanan heads and has fellow Australian Kim Littlejohn charged with driving the selection process.

Littlejohn's background in bowls was a source of much amusement and his appointment controversial.

"As I said before, I don't want to point out individuals," White responded when asked if he supported the pair.

"We've had one bad day in a test match - which I know is an accumulation of poor performances. But I'm not going to point out individuals because we are all accountable.

"We are currently ranked eighth and we'd like to be ranked considerably higher than that.

"As CEO, I oversee the organisation and there is a plan which has been signed off. But it is all right to have plans but the secret now is we must implement it effectively. That work is being done by John Buchanan now."

White said NZC did its best to put resources around the players to help them achieve but there was always room for improvement - budget willing.