Cricket: Good news for Neesham, Craig but Rutherford out

Hamish Rutherford
Hamish Rutherford
It was a case of two in and one out for Otago players after New Zealand Cricket yesterday announced its 20 centrally-contracted players for next season.

The announcement had good and bad news for Otago players. Offspinner Mark Craig earned himself a contract on the back of an impressive debut tour of the West Indies and all-rounder Jimmy Neesham shot up the rankings to secure a contract courtesy of his form on the same tour.

But opener Hamish Rutherford's poor form over recent months saw him slip out of the reckoning, joining fellow opener Peter Fulton and four others - Doug Bracewell, Dean Brownlie, Grant Elliott and Bruce Martin - from last season's list in missing out.

Craig effectively took Martin's place as the spin option while Neesham's outstanding batting form in the West Indies was always going to be hard to ignore. Coupled with his bowling and short-form capabilities, the powerful all-rounder was a lock for one of the 20 contracts.

Neesham and Craig are joined by young pace bowlers Adam Milne and Matt Henry as New Zealand Cricket-contracted players. Keeper-batsman Luke Ronchi and leg-spinner Ish Sodhi were the other two players to be awarded contracts.

NZC national selection general manager Bruce Edgar said Sodhi and Craig had played their parts in the series win in the West Indies.

''While we accept that Mark and Ish are by no means the finished product, they are promising bowlers that we want to invest time in,'' he said.

Set criteria are used to rank players across all three forms of the game with test cricket receiving twice the weighting of one day internationals and twenty20 internationals. The players with the 20 highest aggregate scores are then offered NZC contracts.

Edgar said a lack of certainty meant they were unable to offer contracts to two opening test batsmen so incumbent Tom Latham was the only one to get the nod.

''There'll be plenty of opportunities for the openers and others with domestic contracts to put their hand up on both the New Zealand A tour to England later this month and throughout the season in the domestic competitions.''

The extra national contract for an Otago player does free up a contract at Otago level if the Otago Cricket Association chooses to use its full quota of 14 contracts.


New Zealand: Contracted players
Corey Anderson, Trent Boult, Mark Craig, Martin Guptill, Matt Henry, Tom Latham, Mitchell McClenaghan, Brendon McCullum, Nathan McCullum, Kyle Mills, Adam Milne, Colin Munro, Jimmy Neesham, Luke Ronchi, Ish Sodhi, Tim Southee, Ross Taylor, Neil Wagner, BJ Watling, Kane Williamson.


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