When will old folk learn that we're just trying to survive the shit-storm they created?

Crazy things can happen in a Champions Trophy tournament where there are only eight teams and each game is borderline knock-out cricket. Chuck in some English weather and you've got a recipe for the unpredictable, a recipe for a sub-continent powerhouse and their temperamental rival to compete in a final. India and Pakistan aren't taking their rivalry into a new chapter on home soil, their playing a CT final in England, where conditions apparently favour every other team but them.

And our Blackcaps weren't very good.

Neither were Australia, although Mother Nature had a hefty influence on their CT campaign. South Africa weren't overly flash either, although the disappointment surrounding their efforts stems from having a settled team that under-performed. England would be disappointed that they are not in the final, although they played some nice cricket and made it out of pool-play looking as slick as any other team.

Zoning in solely on the CT could leave you feeling some type of positive vibes about Aotearoa, despite their struggles. Other teams who had more talent than the kiwis also struggled and the volatile nature of the CT format (and conditions) offers context for how the Blackcaps were knocked out without really snapping into gear. On the surface, this wasn't so bad.

As y'all are aware though, the Niche Cache has followed the endless shenanigans surrounding the Blackcaps all summer long. This CT failure is merely a culmination of an absence of logical selection decisions and as we tried our best to identify a redonkulous selection decision after redonkulous selection decision all summer, 'Lesson' worked themselves into a corner with few wise options remaining. Instead of building towards the CT, the Blackcaps were backed into a corner and their CT went as expected.

The best example of this is the wicket-keeping situation and there's no need to harp on about it as we did cover extensively through the summer. It's important to raise it briefly as we try to move on and move towards what I view as a very exciting kiwi cricketing future because it sums up the madness beautifully.

BJ Watling started the summer as the Blackcaps ODI wicket-keeper in Australia, which in itself was puzzling as he was given a late-innings hitting role with the bat, something we've rarely seen Watling do. Luke Ronchi finished as the Blackcaps ODI wicket-keeper, selected thanks to his powerful hitting ability at the top of the order, a role he hadn't done in a while and we all know that Ronchi isn't the best wicket-keeper/batsmen in Aotearoa. In-between, Tom Latham was given a opportunity and Tom Blundell was given a taste, neither had any faith put in them to prepare for the CT with consistent game time.

Because no wicket-keeper was given the summer to prepare for the CT, Ronchi was a default option.

A summer of weird selection decisions that resulted in players coming and going, the opposite of having a core group who prepared for the CT by playing game after game together as a group, also resulted in the absence of any clear identity, style or simply a plan. Think back to the last World Cup; there was a predictability about how the Blackcaps played their ODI cricket. Not in a bad way though, in a great way where that predictability resulted in everyone doing their specific job to the best of their ability. Made possible thanks to a clarity in the selections and what the team was trying to achieve.

The first issue is that the only identity or plan visible in this Blackcaps team seemed to be the same identity from that 2015 World Cup, only without Brendon McCullum. Even if the Blackcaps had worked hard all summer long to drill their style of play into a group of 15 cricketers against Australia and Bangladesh (who they knew they'd face in the CT) as well as the quality of South Africa, it's hard to maintain that when players were selected directly from the IPL without taking part in the kiwi summer.

Aotearoa didn't even get that far though. You can't establish an identity or simply practice your core role that you are going to have to execute under pressure at the CT, when guys like Matt Henry, Lockie Ferguson, Henry Nicholls, Colin de Grandhomme, Colin Munro, Tom Latham and Ish Sodhi endured inconsistent game time. None of that group played a CT game though because players who hadn't even played an ODI for Aotearoa last summer were selected. One would assume it's even more difficult to practice your role (under pressure against quality opposition) when you're not in the team, right?

We all want the Blackcaps to perform strongly and we need to rid ourselves of any underdog tag as we have the cricketing talent in this country to be a legit top-tier nation. I was not and am not overly distraught by the madness though because it has to result in some sort of change moving forward. This CT result is not rock-bottom, this summer as a whole is rock-bottom and I'm now super excited by what the future holds.

Rock-bottom is when you can't find any information about Under 19 tours or Aotearoa 'A' tours and in the past 12 months the Niche Cache has named more teams and squads than NZ Cricket has. As kiwis we have bid farewell to anything that resembles a five-Test series and we are now fed a diet of limited-overs cricket. All that limited overs cricket has the sole purpose of boosting the bank balances of NZ Cricket, which ignores how popular Test cricket is in Aotearoa and the financial boost of limited-overs gluttony doesn't appear to be funding extensive tours overseas to develop our young cricketers.

Kiwi cricket has moved backwards and unlike mainstream media who like to paint new skipper Kane Williamson or other players as the reason why, I'm all in favour of the players as they aren't being put in the best position to achieve success. England cricketers talked about how they changed the way they played cricket and the word 'fear' was used regularly. What I see in kiwi cricketers is fear and that fear is justified because as soon as you don't perform (take Henry, Ferguson, Nicholls, Latham for example) you are dropped and it's a cycle that repeated itself all summer.

Funnily enough, we have a culture of fear in the Blackcaps that has been developed by those who select squads. Williamson has a hand in selected teams, although I really struggle to imagine Williamson as a someone who is learning how to captain the Blackcaps and is learning how goes about establishing himself as a leader, advocates for players to come and go, unsettling his team.

I love this though. I love that we have got to this point where we have a young captain and young cricketers in Aotearoa that I am confident in saying is the most talented wave of cricketers I've seen. The vast majority of those cricketers weren't in the Champions Trophy squad, some featured in sporadic (limited-overs) appearances this summer and many are impressing on the domestic circuit.

As I whip up an exploration into that wave of cricketers, ponder to yourselves what the current decision-makers (Lesson etc) have done to suggest that they are the best people to take kiwi cricket into an exciting future. I've pondered that all summer and the answer is nothing, I have no faith in them to lead kiwi cricket towards glory.

Most kiwi media doesn't keep it real, we try to keep it real. So support us by hitting one of the ads which donates directly to the Niche Cache. You don't gotta pay nothing. Chur.