JOIN USSpeaking ahead of an NZC board crisis meeting on Friday to discuss the team’s humiliating 4-0 whitewash in a one-day series against the cricketing minnows, Allott blamed New Zealand’s batsmen for the loss.
“It was clear that some of our decision-making around our shots was not acceptable,” he told Radio New Zealand, adding that the batsmen had repeated the same mistakes over and over.
“That’s probably the biggest disappointment along with the hurt for the guys themselves.”
All-time low
New Zealand media have described the series loss as an all-time low for the country’s cricket team and expressed fears it will face similar maulings during an upcoming Indian tour and at next year’s World Cup to be held in India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.
Allott said changes were needed and he hoped the Bangladesh tour would act as a catalyst to spur on New Zealand’s players. He gave no indication of how NZC was planning to respond to the loss and was non-committal when asked if coach Mark Greatbach’s job would be on the line at Friday’s tour post-mortem.
“All of us are responsible, we believe we’ve got the best players and the best structure at the moment to take the team forward to the World Cup,” he replied. “We’ve had a bad hiccup in the preparation for that goal, that’s what we’ve got to immediately address.”
Allott was adamant the Black Caps could bounce back in the near future.
Similar situations
“We’ve been in similar situations in the past and turned it around fairly quickly, probably not as dire as it is at the moment but we have no alternative,” he said.
He denied New Zealand’s players travelled to Bangladesh underestimating their opponents, saying they always knew it would be a tough tour against an emerging team hungry for success.
Greatbach, captain Daniel Vettori and performance director Roger Mortimer called Friday’s meeting because they wanted to explain what happened in Bangladesh, the NZC said in a statement which was released to the media.