Ex-Black Cap urges against split coaches, defends under-fire Stead

New Zealand Cricket should avoid going down the route of splitting the Black Caps’ coaching roles, urges former international Kyle Mills.

As cricket moves closer to an outright divergence between the red- and the white-ball game, national sides splitting their coaching roles has become more and more commonplace in the world game.

At present, England is the best example of a nation with split coaches, as former New Zealand captain Brendon McCullum leads the test team, while Australian Matthew Mott takes charge of the ODI and T20 units.

Elsewhere, Pakistan and South Africa both also make use of split coaches for their different set-ups.

Following New Zealand’s early exit from the Twenty20 World Cup in the West Indies and USA, public pressure is mounting on Black Caps coach Gary Stead.

However, for Mills – who made more than 200 appearances for his country at international level, taking the second-most ODI wickets, behind only fomer captain Daniel Vettori – diverting from what’s currently in place is not the way to go.

“We’re a victim of our environment, a little bit, when it comes to that,” Mills told the Agenda Podcast. “If you look at England, they play cricket in blocks. You’ve got a red-ball block and a white-ball block.

“I think Baz [McCullum] has been home for three months. He goes out to England next week or the week after for their test match block. Australia’s the same.

“Us, we fight for people to come here and to play. We’ll play test matches one week, then we’ll squeeze in some T20 games or go back to a test, or go back to white-ball cricket.

“If we’ve got different coaches, the nucleus of our team is kind of the same, no matter what format.

“That would get messy for us. A coach leaving on Sunday morning, a new coach coming in on Monday, and then the following week they change back again? Mixed messages.”

Mills’ rationale isn’t without evidence.

Despite the adulation for England’s set-up, McCullum’s test outfit are bottom of the World Test Championship table after two series, while Mott’s white-ball side crashed out of last year’s ODI World Cup, and came within one game of the same at this year’s T20 World Cup.

And while Pakistan are new to their split coaching set-up, they are also out of this year’s T20 World Cup, after an embarrassing defeat to the USA.

Overall, New Zealand have a much smaller player pool than the likes of England, Pakistan or South Africa.

Of the 15-man squad selected for the T20 World Cup, only Finn Allen and Mark Chapman have not played test cricket for New Zealand – yet.

When Stead re-signed with New Zealand Cricket in mid-2023, high performance general manager Bryan Stronach indicated the largely similar playing group was decisive in keeping a one-coach structure.

However, pressure on Stead is still mounting.

Despite leading the Black Caps to finals in all three forms, public opinion seems to have made Stead the scapegoat for the failure in the Caribbean.

Former Black Caps captain Stephen Fleming is the popular choice to succeed Stead, however that appointment would be highly unlikely, given his ties to franchise cricket through the Indian Premier League’s Chennai Super Kings.

But for Mills, the scrutiny of Stead is unwarranted, given he was the first New Zealand coach to claim international silverware for 21 years, when the Black Caps won the inaugural World Test Championship.

“He has enough credit in the bank, to be honest,” he added.

“He’s probably one of our most successful coaches in the history of the game, for us.

“That’s what happens, isn’t it? You lose, and people look for an angle.”

Alex Powell is an Online Sports Editor for the NZ Herald. He has been a sports journalist since 2016, and previously worked for both Newshub and 1News.