'Where are our hundreds?' asks Hadlee

Stephen Fleming's 54 in Centurion was New Zealand's only half-century in the Test series in South Africa © AFP

New Zealand's cricketers are under pressure from domestic players after a succession of poor performances in the Tests and ODIs in South Africa, and the Chappell-Hadlee series in Australia. The squad for the Test series against Bangladesh is due to be picked between the second and third one-dayers and Richard Hadlee, the chairman of the selection panel, has said that there is a "tremendous amount to play for".

"If we need to reward players at the domestic level at the expense of the incumbent players, then that's the professional environment," Hadlee told the Herald on Sunday. "Clearly, we've been disappointed by a number of the performances in the one-dayers and a number of those guys are a part of the Test set-up, so we need to see some improvement in both the batting and bowling. They've got a couple of games to really impress."

Mathew Sinclair was rewarded for his domestic performances by being included in the squad for the one-day series in South Africa and he scored 105 runs in two innings. Hadlee said that Matthew Bell, who was one of two domestic double-centurions this season, and Andre Adams were the other "key performers in domestic cricket" and would "certainly be up for discussion".

"You have to recognise performances at other levels, particularly if some of the current players are struggling for form," Hadlee said. "But what we've got to measure is the standard of domestic cricket up against the top quality of international cricket that our guys have been playing."

New Zealand's batsmen failed to cope with Dale Steyn's during the Tests in South Africa and were bowled out for less than 200 in all four innings. Apart from Stephen Fleming, none of the other batsmen even scored a half-century, a problem which Hadlee was concerned about.

"We want batsmen that can bat time and play a long innings," Hadlee said. "Either their history or record will tell us that, or there are things we might see in players who are playing domestic cricket. A quick 30 or 40 in a five-day match is not the answer. We want the team to bat for two days, so we've got to find batsmen who are more geared up for that rather than a quick 50. Every time we play a Test, there are one or two guys in the opposition that score hundreds. Where are our hundreds?"

The Bangladesh bowling attack will be nowhere as threatening as South Africa's but with the home series against England to follow in March, there's a lot riding on how New Zealand perform in the upcoming one-dayers and the Tests against relatively easy opposition.