NZC to conduct review into Bangladesh debacle

New Zealand captain Daniel Vettori, coach Mark Greatbatch and high performance director, Roger Mortimer, will meet with New Zealand Cricket's board on October 22 to review the disastrous ODI tour of Bangladesh, which ended in a 4-0 thrashing on Sunday. They are also expected to discuss their upcoming tour of India, for which the squad will be named on October 24, and their World Cup preparation, which is a shambles following an unprecedented defeat in Bangladesh, one of the host nations of the tournament in 2011.

The result plunged New Zealand to seventh in the ICC's ODI rankings, their lowest position since November 2005, but despite acknowledging the gravity of the situation NZC's general manager of cricket, Geoff Allott, said changes to management were unlikely to happen. "It's important that we remain confident in the people we have," he told the Dominion Post. "We've committed to a structure, and we'll be assessed by those decisions."

New Zealand's trip to Bangladesh was marred by poor weather and rain washed out their warm-up games, forcing the visitors to go into the ODI series with no match practice. Their batsmen struggled to adjust to the pace and turn of the pitches in Mirpur and failed to score more than 200 in three out of four innings.

"Disappointing is an understatement. When you lose 4-0 in a country you're going to be playing a World Cup match, then it's a big concern," Allott said. "From a fitness perspective, and a technical perspective, we've got the goods, it's actually the decision-making. Throughout the series there were cross-bat shots. Some senior players would be the first to put their hands up and say they didn't lead by example."

Kane Williamson scored New Zealand's only century in the series, while Ross Taylor, Brendon McCullum, who averaged only 21.50, and Grant Elliott were the only batsmen to score a half-century each. Jesse Ryder was one of the biggest disappointments, scoring 58 runs in three innings at an average of 19.33, while BJ Watling played all four games but scraped together 27 at 6.75.

After the series, Vettori had said it was "probably the lowest point in New Zealand cricket for a long, long time. To stare down 4-0 is incredibly disappointing and something that will stay with us. We have to recover from it pretty quickly, otherwise people will be pretty desolate about New Zealand cricket."

Former New Zealand fast bowler, Simon Doull, was scathing in his criticism of the team. Doull said that Vettori, who bears the burden of leading the bowling and being a reliable batsman to go with his captaincy duties, was not getting any help from the other senior members of the team.

"He [Vettori] is under pressure and I'm not sure he's coping with it all that well," Doull told LiveSPORT. "I can't see any answers. We're going into a World Cup in two and a half months and if we think we're going to be anywhere near the top eight we're dreaming at the moment. They could turn it around but it's going to take a miracle."