New Zealand Cricket, formerly the New Zealand Cricket Council, is the governing body for professional

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by st ...

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 List of islands of New Zealand, smaller islands. It is the ...

Cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by st ...

is the most popular and highest profile summer sport in New Zealand. New Zealand Cricket operates the New Zealand cricket team, organising Test tours and One-Day Internationals with other nations. It also organises domestic cricket in New Zealand, including the Plunket Shield first-class competition, The Ford Trophy men's domestic one-day competition, the Hallyburton Johnstone Shield women's domestic one-day competition, as well as the

Men's Super Smash The Men's Super Smash, currently named the Dream11 Super Smash for sponsorship purposes until 2026, is a men's domestic Twenty20 cricket competition in New Zealand. Since the 2018–19 season, the competition runs alongside the Women's Super Sma ...

and Women's Super Smash domestic

Twenty20 Twenty20 (T20) is a shortened game format of cricket. At the professional level, it was introduced by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) in 2003 for the county cricket, inter-county competition. In a Twenty20 game, the two teams have ...

competitions. David White is the Chief Executive Officer of New Zealand Cricket. Kane Williamson is the current Black Caps captain in all forms of the game, succeeding Brendon McCullum who retired in 2016.

History

On 27 December 1894, 12 delegates from around New Zealand met in

Christchurch Christchurch ( ; mi, Ōtautahi) is the largest city in the South Island of New Zealand and the seat of the Canterbury Region. Christchurch lies on the South Island's east coast, just north of Banks Peninsula on Pegasus Bay. The Avon Rive ...

to form the New Zealand Cricket Council. Heathcote Williams was elected the inaugural president, and Charles Smith the secretary. The council's aims were to promote and co-ordinate cricket in New Zealand and to organize international tours from and to New Zealand.

Cricket development

New Zealand Cricket has established High Performance Cricket training centre based at Lincoln University. It also operates a grassroots development programme for school children called 'MILO Kiwi Cricket'. John Wright, former NZ opening batsman, was appointed acting high performance manager for NZC in November 2007 before taking up the head coach position in December 2010. Former Australian Coach John Buchanan was appointed as NZC Director of Cricket in May 2011 as the architect of our new high performance programme. He will perform a number of key duties including the establishment of clear and consistent national coaching philosophies, implement a talent identification programme and oversee the Selection Panel.

has many private

academies. The Bracewell Cricket Academy based at Rathkeale College is one of the largest cricket academies, providing an Overseas Cricket Development Programme, a Pre-Season Coaching Camp and a Festival of Cricket. There are over 100,000 registered cricketers in New Zealand. By way of comparison, Australia and the UK have around 500,000 each. According to Mark O'Neill, New Zealand's batting coach from 2007 to 2009, the competition at club level in NZ is nowhere near as intense as in Australia.

"In Sydney there are 20 first grade teams, each club has five grades. To get to first grade you've got to be a friggin' good player and once you get there the competition is very, very fierce. Unfortunately it's not the same standard
n NZ N, or n, is the fourteenth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''en'' (pronounced ), plural ''ens''. History ...
Competition is everything and the only way the New Zealand guys are going to get that is to play the world's best players."

Domestic competitions

New Zealand Cricket operates the

New Zealand cricket team The New Zealand national cricket team represents New Zealand in men's international cricket. Named the Black Caps, they played their first Test in 1930 against England in Christchurch, becoming the fifth country to play Test cricket. From 193 ...

, organising Test tours and One-Day Internationals with other nations. It also organises domestic cricket in New Zealand, including the Plunket Shield first-class competition, The Ford Trophy men's domestic one-day competition, the Hallyburton Johnstone Shield women's domestic one-day competition, as well as the

and Women's Super Smash domestic

competitions.

Men's Teams

New Zealand Cricket involves the following men's domestic teams: * Auckland Aces *

Canterbury Canterbury (, ) is a cathedral city and UNESCO World Heritage Site, situated in the heart of the City of Canterbury local government district of Kent, England. It lies on the River Stour. The Archbishop of Canterbury is the primate of ...

(known as Canterbury Kings for Twenty20) * Central Stags * Northern Districts (known as Northern Brave for Twenty20) * Otago Volts * Wellington Firebirds

Women's Teams

New Zealand Cricket involves the following women's domestic teams: * Auckland Hearts * Canterbury Magicians * Central Hinds * Northern Districts (known as Northern Brave for Twenty20) *

Otago Sparks The Otago Sparks is the women's representative cricket team for the New Zealand region of Otago and the surrounding area. They play their home games at University Oval, Dunedin. They compete in the Hallyburton Johnstone Shield one-day competi ...

* Wellington Blaze

Funding

New Zealand Cricket derives most of its revenue from the sale of two types of broadcasting rights. # Broadcasting rights to home internationals. # A share of the broadcasting rights the ICC sells to its tournaments, such as the World Cup. Host nations pick up all the expenses of touring teams, but get sole access to all broadcast rights and gate receipts. In November 2007 it was announced that NZC had made a 5-year deal for the broadcasting rights to home internationals for NZ$65.4m with Sony Entertainment Television. The previous four-year deal between NZC and ESPN-Star was for only NZ$14.4m. Part of the 5-fold increase in value is due to the Indian team's tour of NZ in 2009. Immediately prior to the 2009 Indian tour of NZ the ''Sunday Star Times'' reported that "NZ Cricket hits $25m jackpot". The article claimed that NZ Cricket will get $1 million for each of the 22 days the Indians take the field and that NZ Cricket had insured against loss of income for the sale of TV rights due to bad weather. NZC boss

Justin Vaughan Justin Thomas Caldwell Vaughan (born 30 August 1967) is a former New Zealand cricketer who played six Test matches and 18 One Day Internationals between 1992 and 1997. He is a doctor of medicine by profession. Life and career Vaughan was an al ...

also said that a tour by India generates "many times" more income than tours by Australia,

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring count ...

and

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

and that the Indian tour was worth more to NZC than the payout from the Cricket World Cup, which was around $20m. The article also states that over the past two years, NZC's income has been around $30m, but this year (2009) Vaughan is hoping to get more than $40 million from broadcast rights, sponsorship and ticket sales. In 2007, the ICC sold the rights to broadcast the World Cup, the Champions Trophy and the ICC World Twenty20 to ESPN Star Sports until 2015 for US$1 billion. NZC will receive a slice of that. In November 2017, Star Sports acquired the broadcast and digital rights for New Zealand Cricket for all men's and women's international matches being organised in the country till April 2020 for the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia.

Partnership with USA Cricket (2010)

On 19 December 2010, after months of negotiations, New Zealand Cricket announced it had signed a business deal with USACA which would see New Zealand play a certain number of games in the US and also make its players available to participate in any

leagues in the USA. A new company was created called Cricket Holdings America LLC. This new company will hold the rights to hold Twenty20 leagues within the United States. New Zealand Cricket chief Justin Vaughan said he was happy with the development because New Zealand was a small market and to exploit a market will allow New Zealand Cricket to secure its funding in the long-term and will also allow cricket to develop popularity as a game in the United States of America.

References

External links

New Zealand Cricket websiteOfficial Facebook pageBlack Caps website
{{Authority control

Cricket administration in New Zealand