New Zealand Cricket, formerly the New Zealand Cricket Council, is the governing body for professional cricket in New Zealand. Cricket 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 and Women's Super Smash domestic Twenty20 competitions. Scott Weenink is the Chief Executive Officer of New Zealand Cricket. Tom Latham is the current Blackcaps Test captain, succeeding Tim Southee who still represents the team. Sophie Devine is the current White Ferns captain.

History

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

Christchurch Christchurch (; ) is the largest city in the South Island and the List of cities in New Zealand, second-largest city by urban area population in New Zealand. Christchurch has an urban population of , and a metropolitan population of over hal ...

to form the New Zealand Cricket Council.

Heathcote Williams John Henley Heathcote-Williams (15 November 1941 – 1 July 2017), known as Heathcote Williams, was an English poet, actor, political activist and dramatist. He wrote a number of book-length polemical poems including ''Autogeddon'', ''Falling ...

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 a 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 a new high performance programme. He performed a number of key duties including the establishment of clear and consistent national coaching philosophies, the implementation of a talent identification programme and oversaw the Selection Panel.

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

has many private

cricket Cricket is a Bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball game played between two Sports team, teams of eleven players on a cricket field, field, at the centre of which is a cricket pitch, pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two Bail (cr ...

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 Sydney is the capital city of the States and territories of Australia, state of New South Wales and the List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city in Australia. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Syd ...
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 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 men's, women's and men's and women's Under 19 New Zealand cricket team, organising Test tours and One-Day Internationals with other nations. It also organises domestic and Māori 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 and Women's Super Smash domestic Twenty20 competitions.

Domestic Teams

Men's Teams

New Zealand Cricket provides competition structures for the following Major Association domestic teams: * Auckland Aces *

Canterbury Canterbury (, ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and UNESCO World Heritage Site, in the county of Kent, England; it was a county borough until 1974. It lies on the River Stour, Kent, River Stour. The city has a mild oceanic climat ...

(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 * 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 Sony Entertainment Television (abbreviated as SET) is an Indian Hindi-language general entertainment pay television channel that was launched in 1995 and is owned by Culver Max Entertainment, a division of Sony Pictures. History This chann ...

. 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 New Zealand cricket administrator and former cricketer who played six Test matches and 18 One Day Internationals between 1992 and 1997. He is a doctor of medicine by profession. Life ...

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

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

and

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

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 Twenty20 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

Cricket Cricket is a Bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball game played between two Sports team, teams of eleven players on a cricket field, field, at the centre of which is a cricket pitch, pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two Bail (cr ...

Cricket administration in New Zealand