Gary Stead makes peace with Black Caps’ lack of home Tests

By Alex Powell

While Kiwi cricket fans may be put off by the Black Caps’ summer schedule containing only one test series, another upcoming world tournament puts things into perspective for coach Gary Stead.

Despite the Black Caps having already played in both a 50 over and 20 over World Cup in the last 12 months, any notion of overkill isn’t on the thinking of the International Cricket Council (ICC).

Between now and 2031, there will be at least one global tournament per year across the three formats of the game.

Come February 2025, the Black Caps will return to Pakistan for the ICC Champions Trophy, where the world’s top eight One Day International sides will meet.

And while other sports, including events like the Olympics and Football World Cup, operate on a four-year cycle, Stead concedes having to continuously aim to peak annually is a reality cricket has to come to terms with.

“That’s one of the challenges of the modern game at the moment,” said Stead.

“But that’s what it is, we know what it is. We’re certainly looking forward to that opportunity again in another white ball competition.

“We performed well in India in the last World Cup, which seems like an eternity ago, but it was only last year, and it’s a format that does suit us.

“So we’re certainly looking forward to the challenge that’s there.”

This time around, the 2025 Champions Trophy has significantly impacted the upcoming New Zealand summer as far as test cricket is concerned.

While the Black Caps season may open with a rare three-test series against Brendon McCullum’s England in November, having to block out February to travel to Pakistan means in many fans’ eyes, the summer is done by December.

For the team itself, though, there is no shortage of test cricket.

In September, the Black Caps are scheduled to face Afghanistan in neutral territory in a one-off test, before a full tour of Sri Lanka in October, where two more tests will be played as part of the World Test Championship.

To cap it off, a further tour of India will see three more tests in difficult conditions, before returning home to host England to complete the initial stage of this World Test Championship cycle.

After that, though, the Black Caps aren’t scheduled for any more tests until July 2025, where according to the ICC’s future tours programme, a tour of Zimbabwe awaits.

For Stead, while home tests over the Kiwi summer are wanted, the context of an ICC tournament and overseas commitments will have to suffice as far as the longest format is concerned.

“It’s always nice to play more tests, but we are playing 13 in this calendar year,” he explained.

“We have a big test diet right now, that’s because of the number of overseas tours that we play; Sri Lanka and India coming up.

“The norm is eight tests per season, and I think that’s going to be the norm as we go through the next few years.”

Building towards the Champions Trophy will also give the Black Caps the chance to right the wrongs of this year’s T20 World Cup in the Caribbean.

For the first time in six tournaments across 50 and 20 over cricket, the Black Caps failed to reach at least the semi-final stage, ending an incredible run for a team of New Zealand’s size and resources.

In particular, the Black Caps were hit by a lack of ability to prepare properly, as players were afforded the opportunity to return home after the Indian Premier League, rather than play warm-up matches in the West Indies.

As a result, defeats to Afghanistan and their hosts saw the Black Caps’ hopes ended after just two games.

Conditions in the West Indies certainly did not play to New Zealand’s strengths, where slow and low pitches impacted batters’ ability to score freely.

That will change significantly in Pakistan, where conditions are kinder to the balance between bat and ball.

However, for Stead, that doesn’t take away from what was otherwise an underperformance in the Caribbean.

“There’s certainly been lots of discussions and reflections around it,” Stead said. “It was a frustrating and disappointing World Cup.

“There was a number of factors around why that was the case, but ultimately we didn’t get through that first pool. That’s what our goal was to do.

“Whilst it’s disappointing, it’s also [about] making sure that we recognise they were challenging and trying conditions over there.

“It wasn’t the best way of how we play our cricket.”

This article was first published on nzherald.co.nz and is republished here with permission