White Ferns cleanout – yes, no, wait?

The right move, despite the outcry

White Ferns seamer Lea Tahuhu only learned New Zealand Cricket wanted to meet with her in person through wife and team-mate Amy Satterthwaite.

Tahuhu was one of five players not to have her White Ferns contract renewed for the coming year yesterday. She was informed 10 days ago she was not in New Zealand’s immediate plans and they would be looking to the future and the next generation ofWhite Ferns.

She described the past week for her and Satterthwaite as the roughest of their lives and said they were both ‘blindsided’ by the news.

Her axing from the national contract list comes a day after Satterthwaite retired from international cricket after not receiving a contract herself.

Despite missing the 17-player contract list, the 31-year-old Tahuhu has vowed to fight her way back into the White Ferns with strong performances for the Canterbury Magicians.

Tahuhu and Satterthwaite had separate individual meetings last Wednesday in Christchurch with NZC’s high performance boss Bryan Stronach and chief executive David White.

Finding out NZC wanted to meet with her through Satterthwaite, rather than receiving her own personal message, had disappointed Tahuhu.

‘‘It’s an interesting one, isn’t it? There’s not many other players this would happen to. I’m not sure if [White Ferns sisters] Amelia or Jess Kerr, if they were in a similar situation, just one of them would get a message.

‘‘I understand we’re married, but at the same time we are two separate people with two different careers and we’ve both given long service. It was a strange one to be told by Amy that I’d be having that meeting.’’

Tahuhu went into the meeting with a positive frame of mind and thought it may have been to discuss her cricket plans for the next year.

She has been the White Ferns’ first-choice pace bowler in recent

Suzie Bates, Eden Carson, Sophie Devine, Lauren Down, Izzy Gaze, Maddy Green, Brooke Halliday, Hayley Jensen, Fran Jonas, Jess Kerr, Melie Kerr, Rosemary Mair, Jess McFadyen, Nensi Patel, Molly Penfold, Georgia Plimmer, Hannah Rowe.

summers and was the leading wicket-taker through the first half of the 2022 Women’s Cricket World Cup on home soil. She finished with 10 wickets at an average of 20.08 (economy rate 4.76), injuring her hamstring late in the tournament against England.

Since debuting for the White Ferns in 2011, Tahuhu has been a regular in the side, playing 83 ODIs and 61 T20Is.

Leigh Kasperek, Frankie Mackay and Thamsyn Newton were the other three players not to be retained, with Katey Martin having announced her retirement earlier this month.

Six players have been offered contracts for the first time: Auckland Hearts trio Fran Jonas, Molly Penfold and Izzy Gaze, Northern Brave spinner Nensi Patel, Otago Sparks spinner Eden Carson and Wellington Blaze batter Georgia Plimmer.

The past week had been challenging for both Tahuhu and Satterthwaite.

‘‘I’d say it’s certainly been the roughest week of our lives. You never go into a meeting like that knowing what to expect. I guess we didn’t have a heap of information leading into it apart from being asked to attend it. It’s been really emotional. It’s been hard on us,’’ Tahuhu said.

Discovering she wasn’t receiving a national contract and wasn’t seen as a ‘‘key T20 player’’ for the White Ferns had been a shock. The White Ferns have a busy schedule of T20 cricket looming over the next 12 months with July’s Commonwealth Games in Birmingham and the Women’s T20 World Cup in South

Africa in February.

‘‘It’s really disappointing from my point of view, especially around the T20 line and the heavy diet [of matches]. I’ve worked extremely hard over the last 12 months to improve my batting and my power game for T20 cricket and felt I had a good Super Smash [domestic] series.

‘‘The most recent T20 game for the White Ferns [against India in Queenstown in February] I was player of the match. To be sat there and told, it’s hard to take. You respect what they’re doing and they’ve decided a change is needed and a different direction is going to be taken.’’

Tahuhu had bounced back from setbacks throughout her career and believed she still had a lot to contribute to the White Ferns. Her hunger and desire to play cricket at the elite level remained strong.

She was looking at possible T20 franchise opportunities overseas and would be concentrating on offseason training with Canterbury.

‘‘I’ve come back before from numerous setbacks and this is just another one I’ll be looking to tackle and hopefully get back out there and play again for my country.’’

Tahuhu was saddened by the way Satterthwaite had been treated and believed it could have been handled far better. After 15 years of international cricket, it was upsetting Satterthwaite, a New Zealand cricket great, had simply been told she wouldn’t be receiving a national contract and wasn’t in the White Ferns’ future plans.

‘‘That’s probably one of the things for her and for us as a family that has been hard to come to terms with is that she wasn’t even given the respect of a conversation of asking what her plans are for the next six-to-12 to-18 months ...

‘‘You’d expect a bit of a conversation to have occurred, a two-way street, instead of being sat down and informed.’’

After more than a decade of underperforming by the White Ferns, New Zealand Cricket has rightly said

White Ferns contracted players:

enough.

The organisation has brought the axe down on a string of established internationals, including standout Amy Satterthwaite.

The veteran left-hand batter was one of a host of senior players not given aWhite Ferns contract by NZC this week, along with pace bowler Lea Tahuhu, allrounder Frankie Mackay and spinner Leigh Kasperek.

In their place are young players which the organisation has decided are the future of women’s cricket – spinners Eden Carson, Fran Jonas and Nensi Patel, quick bowler Molly Penfold, batter Georgia Plimmer and wicketkeeper Izzy Gaze.

Yesterday’s announcement of the 17 contracted players for the 2022-23 year was pre-empted the previous day by Satterthwaite’s retirement from the international game after 256 appearances for her country – brought about by her omission from the contracted list.

That bombshell was followed by more shell shock as Tahuhu (144 international games), Mackay (60) and Kasperek (85) also became victims of a clear push for youth.

In their place – and that of Thamsyn Newton – come six players who have yet to eithermake their White Ferns debut ormake any international contribution of note.

While the sextet could be considered to have shown some promising returns at domestic level, none of them have yet displayed the ability that makes them a better bet for the national side over the next year than Satterthwaite or Tahuhu.

But NZ Cricket’s hand had essentially been forced by a numbing run of disappointing world-stage showings from the White Ferns. Going all-in without holding anything near ‘the nuts’ is a risky move at a poker table, but after you’ve been bossed around for endless orbits, eventually you have to make a stand.

So if NZC has erred, it has done so on the side of bravery.

When the home side didn’t make the semifinals of the World Cup this year, it marked a depressing run of failures by a teamwith some of the country’s best women cricketers in its history in Sophie Devine, Suzie Bates, Satterthwaite, Melie Kerr and Tahuhu.

It was the third consecutive occasion New Zealand failed tomake the last four of a one-day World Cup, coupled withmissing out on the semifinals of the Twenty20 World Cup at their last two appearances.

The sixth-placing at this year’s event on home soil spelled the end of the coaching reign of Bob Carter.

However, the new round of contracts has come before NZ Cricket has appointed his successor.

It’s undeniable that the latest contracting process is flawed. NZ Cricket said it considered likely playing values over the next 12 months (with a T20 focus with the shortest-format World Cup held next year), calculating in past performances, playing history, the upcoming playing schedule, and likelihood of players being involved during that period.

That still makes it hard to fathom why Hayley Jensen was contracted while othersweren’t.

By stating in the media release on the contracts ‘‘the NZ Cricket Players Association expressed satisfaction the contracting process, as outlined in the Master Agreement, was adhered to’’, it appears NZ Cricket is keen to point out the decisions would stand up to scrutiny and any protests which could yet follow.

The youth path is problematic as there aren’t systems in place within women’s cricket inNew Zealand to develop our brightest talents properly before asking them to jump into the national side.

Ultimately, it feels like amassive missed opportunity to further build the game with a sterling showing at the home World Cup was the last straw for NZ Cricket.

Inevitably, there’s going to be a period of further pain as players of promise find out how unforgiving the top level is, and they’re going to have to make their failures in the spotlight aswell.

But that’s nothing that we haven’t witnessed formany years already from the White Ferns.

So if NZC has erred, it has done so on the side of bravery.