Incoming chief executive for New Zealand Cricket Martin Snedden admitted today that cricket had coursed through the blood of the Snedden family for most of the 20th Century and would continue in a more practical fashion in the 21st Century

Lynn McConnell04-May-2001Incoming chief executive for New Zealand Cricket Martin Snedden admitted today that cricket had coursed through the blood of the Snedden family for most of the 20th Century and would continue in a more practical fashion in the 21st Century.His appointment allowed him to work in something that had been a passion for most of his life and he couldn’t imagine anything better than leading a major business in the sport he liked so much.While the basic workings of New Zealand Cricket are known to him as a board member, the day to day operation, and the need to report to the board in future, would be a new experience for him.He would focus strongly on the business side of the game but his real interest was the cricket side.”That’s the reason I’m here,” he said.”I am out of my comfort zone as I have been in the legal industry for 25 years but there are skills that crossover,” he said.In the near future he would have the opportunity to deal with some great cricketing issues and he was looking forward to that.He’s already set himself an initial objective of putting in place the resources to enable grass roots cricket to improve what it has to offer young people, their parents and their coaches, whether through clubs, schools or district associations.The game was in a healthy state but couldn’t afford to rest on its laurels.”I want to drive cricket forward to make it better,” he said.The CLEAR Black Caps were in an interesting situation at the moment and while injury had denied the team its top players it had allowed a broadening of the base of the game.Some of the results achieved by the Black Caps recently, most notably the ICC KnockOut win in Kenya, had been better than those achieved by the great New Zealand team of his own era.But what was of concern was the inconsistency of the side.”I’ll be raising the bar for the CLEAR Black Caps and requiring them to perform much more consistently,” he said.Among the cricket issues he is looking to address is ensuring the momentum of the CricInfo Women’s World Cup-winning CLEAR White Ferns is maintained. That success had been great for the women’s game and he wants to see women more involved in cricket because women were now just as involved as men in deciding what games their children should play.He wants participation numbers to increase and that meant ensuring resources were available, across the board, to develop the game.Domestic and provincial cricket needed to be very carefully watched in order to ensure first-class cricket of genuine quality was available to develop players but to also be competitive. He would like to think international cricketers could be available more often for first-class play, and that first-class players could equally be more available for club play.”That might be a pipedream with the schedule over the next two years but it is part of the filtering process which allows competition and experience to be passed down to the lower levels,” he said.Crowd numbers were down at international matches this year but that was a reflection on the disappointments of the New Zealand team in South Africa.While he is to take up his position at the end of July, he will attend the ICC meeting scheduled for mid-June where the report of Sir Paul Condon’s investigation on match-fixing allegations is expected to be discussed.Snedden said he felt it was important that he put himself in front of his fellow CEOs and that he start on building a relationship with them.He paid tribute to the work of his predecessor Christopher Doig.”Chris had an enormously successful term as CEO. He came in at a very difficult time and achieved a lot. He put New Zealand Cricket on a very sound basis.”I’d like to thank the staff of NZC for the same reasons and I am looking forward to establishing a strong working relationship with them.”He also thanked NZC chairman Sir John Anderson for the opportunity to take the position and said he was extremely excited about the job and couldn’t wait to get started.”At some stage in my working life I wanted to get heavily involved in cricket. It was three or four weeks after Chris resigned that the idea started to work at me. And it has come at exactly the right time in my life,” he said.