I've been in a weird spot with cricket lately. With the World Cup going down right before the Ashes, I feel like there's a void that needs to be filled. We need some more high-stakes cricket to really enjoy, to sink our teeth into and to get excited about.

Sure, there are different series with different formats, but nothing is really on the line. It's just like a traveling circus, 'oop, we're off to this nation now to play against these guys'. I've said it many times before that the pinnacle of Test cricket, thus the pinnacle of cricket is the Ashes and it's oh so dumb how that only involves two nations. Surely there must be more for us as cricket fans, well I don't really know so I'll just do a brainstorm...

It's important to note that some of these come from a kiwi perspective and involve kiwi-based plans, but hey, the rest of the world is welcome to join in.

Annual fixtures. A tricky one given all the variables with schedules and what not, but the Black Caps need to set up some sort of rivalry and build it up over a few years. Obviously we have Australia as a nicely groomed candidate, but they're involved in the Ashes, so fuck 'em and also fuck the Ashes format, let's go year on year.

I'd throw South Africa into the hat as my nomination. We've got a sporting rivalry already set in stone and while both nations respect each other, we also love to whoop each other's backsides and there's no love lost on the field.

Let's go to South Africa this year, they come to Aotearoa the next year and so on. Instead of it being limited to a Test series or heaven forbid a series solely consisting of limited overs cricket, why not have three of all three formats? Three Test's, three ODI's and three T20's.

Both nations have stable cricket sides and it'll be pretty damn competitive. I like that one.

Sometimes we have this extremely weird North Island vs South Island game in a variety of different formats with limited overs usually getting the tick. I like the idea, but the execution is horrible with it being a one-off and no one really giving a shit about the performances or the result. How can we take this and run with it?

This goes hand in hand with the lack of buzz around domestic cricket. I like how domestic cricket, especially the Plunket Shield has its own little niche audience, that's part of the charm but there definitely needs to be something on the domestic scene to get excited about. North vs South is a great start, but there's room for it to get slightly more State Of Origin-ish with an actual series of games taking place where we can get to know the players more and get to know a few of the storylines, hence building some tribalism and rivalry.

I think Island Of Origin is the best way, definitely don't use that name though we don't want to be biting off the Aussies. But the Island concept is a winner and I think, with less time on our hands we need to see one of each of the formats. No 'Test' because it's a domestic fixture so a four-dayer, a 50 over game and a 20 over game. Over about a week and a half, with a bunch of community initiatives between the games and training, much like what we see with the Indigenous All Stars game in the NRL.

One sticking point would be that no current Black Caps players can take part. Domestic toilers only.

This could be mirrored by a ladies equivalent, a lot of these ideas could be mirrored by the ladies.

Join an Australian league, like the Big Bash. It's unrealistic to expect a domestic cricket team to consistently compete in a four/five day competition in Australia and I think it's also a stretch with the 50 over stuff, but there's no reason why we can't push to have a team in the Big Bash, or two.

I'm a cricket nerd and as much as I love the game, trying to watch the Poo-Pie Super Smash is close to torture, well it's not torture when you don't watch it though. The newest trend in cricket is to have a T20 competition to hang your hat on and the Super Smash isn't quite in the same level of the other T20 competitions around the world and I don't think there's much we can do to improve it.

We can however get a team in the Big Bash, to rally behind and to get a taste of some T20 cricket with greater intensity and atmosphere. We could send the winner of our competition to join the Big Bash, which would take some schedule re-shuffles or we could set up two franchises with our best players to venture across the ditch. We've got this beast of a T20 competition so close to us, it would foolish not to try get involved and if enough effort is put into making a compelling case, I don't think the Aussies would mind.

Nation-wide festival of cricket. This happens on a slightly smaller scale and without much buzz, but given how many different cultures and ethnicities that we have in Aotearoa and in cricket, I reckon we could do a festival where cultures are represented. European, Maori, Samoa, Tonga, Fiji, India, China, Dutch, South African, you could get 10-15 teams together to compete for some glorious prize.

Ideally this would go down in a small window where domestic cricket stops and international cricket is limited so we can get a nice high standard of play. It would be pretty hard to get everything aligned to play four day cricket but you could definitely play some 50 over stuff over the span of a week. Let's steer away from the 20 over stuff.

Change the location each year and celebrate our cultural diversity.

That's enough for today, I'll ponder some more ideas and be back at some stage with another brainstorm.