Team manager pardons Jesse Ryder for verbal abuse

New Zealand team manager Dave Currie has assured he has no ill feelings towards Jesse Ryder after the temperamental batsman verbally abused him in the dressing room after smashing a chair during a Champions Trophy match against Sri Lanka in September. New Zealand Cricket (NZC) chief executive Justin Vaughan said he was aware of the incident but the offence wasn't "serious" enough for Ryder to face a stringent penalty.

Ryder pulled a left abductor muscle early in his innings but he still managed to smash 74 off 58 balls with the aid of a runner. However, he took his frustrations out by smashing a chair with his bat near the boundary rope and the Sunday Star-Times has reported that when the manager tried to calm him down, Ryder told him to "**** off, you stupid old ****." Currie copped abuse again when he suggested that Ryder see a doctor. The injury ruled out of the tournament and it could take another month for him to return.

Currie said that Ryder's abuse was more a spur of the moment reaction after getting out. Ryder has had a history of behavioural problems in his short international career and NZC have punished him for his offences, yet kept faith in him.

"What do I say? Firstly I'd agree it wasn't a hanging offence," Currie said. "Clearly he was a bit grumpy and we felt we had to take some action around that. We have, it's been dealt with, and we're looking forward to having him back. You wouldn't hope to have that behaviour but you accept cricket's emotional. The other side of the coin is you don't want bland, unemotional blah ... and not be pissed off about getting out either."

Currie added that Ryder had apologised for his actions. "We went through a process, we're fine," Currie said. "This stuff happens in teams all the time, emotions can get ahead of yourself. "I like him, he's a character and teams need characters."

Ryder was fined 15% of his match fee by the ICC match referee for smashing the chair and he was reportedly fined again by NZC but Vaughan said the board decided to deal with it behind closed doors. Ryder escaped a serious reprimand after NZC had given him a stern warning after an incident at a Christchurch bar, where he sustained a hand injury, and Vaughan added that Ryder was too talented a player to be sidelined for too long.

"When we said that, it was in relation to a particularly serious incident where he did himself harm by carrying on like an idiot," Vaughan told the same paper. "Jesse is still a work in progress and we didn't want to raise the last incident because there seemed no point in publicising that."

"Every sporting code has these types of individuals who are enormously talented yet have other issues and we're still working out how to unlock the key to getting the best out of Jesse Ryder but it's Jesse who has to understand that more than anyone and figure out the way forward.

"We're going to have to be tough on him. We've been caught in the past, and not just with Jesse but with other players, by bringing people back too soon; our team doesn't need that. When Jesse comes back we need to be absolutely certain he's fit and ready to go, we're not going to rush him back just because he's such a good a player, that's not the way we want to operate."

NZC has, of late, been dealing with player issues in private. The news of two A team players, Aaron Redmond and Neil Broom breaking a team curfew in Chennai broke out three months after the incident.