AOTEAROA WILL BE REALLY GOOD AT CRICKET, TRUST ME

Lost in the depths of winter has been two very mediocre performances of our national cricket teams at international tournaments. Winter arrived, those creepy creatures have made their intentions clear and they demand our attention, so the lacklustre Blackcaps and White Ferns results resemble a splash of drama among the Sand Sisters down in Dorne.

For those of y'all who don't bother with Game Of Thrones; there's bigger fish to fry in the middle of winter than some crappy cricket results.

But in a cricket bubble, the Champions Trophy (Blackcaps) and World Cup (White Ferns) were the centre of attention. These two tournaments were major events for our national teams, measuring sticks for how our cricket program is going and an opportunity to once again punch above our sporting weight and bring some level of glory to kiwi cricket. Glory in terms of either team's success and also building hype around kiwi cricket, bringing sponsors and buzz to kiwi cricket (maybe even giving domestic cricket a boost) that has done nothing but slip and slide since the men's World Cup.

Buzz and hype from that men's World Cup still lingers, although it's almost at the 'running on fumes' stage. A successful Champions Trophy (top-four at least) would have wiped aside the weird summer and given kiwi cricket fans reason to stay upbeat, despite a complete lack of common sense and planning around the Blackcaps. A successful World Cup (making the final at least) would have put the White Ferns in their rightful spot as one of Aotearoa's best sports teams and easily Aotearoa's best cricket teams.

You could say that the Blackcaps and White Ferns were on a hunt to get some Dragonglass - a crucial tool to fight off sporting irrelevance, which also doubles as a fantastic resource to build everlasting structures. The Blackcaps and White Ferns embarked on their hunt for Dragonglass and got murked by a few wandering Lannister soldiers, moments after leaving Winterfell to begin their journey.

I expected the Blackcaps to endure such a Champions Trophy result, although I was hopeful of more. The writing was on the wall all summer and instead of setting the Blackcaps up for the best chance of Champions Trophy success, they were set up for failure. The White Ferns on the other hand were my ray of sunshine and everything that the Blackcaps were doing to set themselves up for failure, the White Ferns did the opposite. Their failure at the World Cup hurts a lot more given that and we're left with two national cricket teams who could be considered as non-factors in international tournaments.

Not ideal.

Both teams have proven world-class performers, who should have been capable to taking their teams further in either tournament. It's not just a case of having Kane Williamson and Suzie Bates dominating, there's Ross Taylor, Trent Boult and we're led to believe Tim Southee's world-class as I'll chuck him in that group as well, for the Blackcaps and Amy Satterthwaite, Sophie Devine, Lea Tahuhu and Leigh Kasperek for the White Ferns.

Aotearoa has legit World Class batters and bowlers, there's a touch of variety in the quality. Enough variety to expect quality performances and such performances under pressure, yet we've only seen them under-deliver. There's definitely many benefits that come with impressive performances in Aotearoa, the true mark of cricket teams is what they do in other countries. It's fine and dandy to celebrate a Blackcaps team that beats up Asian teams in Aotearoa, but what are the Blackcaps doing when they venture overseas?

Not a whole lot; they got torched in Test series over in India and in South Africa. They didn't just lose, they got torched and showed nothing in terms of fighting hard to earn a draw at least. The Blackcaps have only won an ODI series against Zimbabwe outside of Aotearoa, losing series to England, South Africa, India and Australia. Go back a tad further and they valiantly drew a series in Sri Lanka, after losing a series in Bangladesh.

Even as the White Ferns were building nicely towards their World Cup, the likes of Amy Satterthwaite and Suzie Bates' dominance came in Aotearoa. Satterthwaite took her ODI century from two to six with four centuries in a row, all of which came against Pakistan - a team that the Ferns smoked in the World Cup - in Aotearoa. Satterthwaite averages 56.18 in Aotearoa, 28.31 on foreign turf while Bates averages 46.16 in Aotearoa and 35.56 overseas.

There's a difference in those numbers, nothing too dramatic though. And that's because Bates and Satterthwaite are quality, which brings me back around to why this all sucks so much; we have the quality. It's not as though Aotearoa is mediocre because we've been left behind by the world's best cricketers, nah, we have some of the finest male and female cricketers on this planet.

Neither team is an 'underdog' because they have genuine quality. That's the concern and there's got to be reasons for that, I'm not convinced that the right questions are being asked, or that enough is being done to prepare our cricketers to earn results that match their ability. If absolutely every boxed was ticked and everything was being done on the periphery to ensure Blackcaps and White Ferns success, the Blackcaps would not have gone backwards since the World Cup and the White Ferns wouldn't have under-performed.

The Blackcaps lost some key players since that World Cup, but we're two years removed from that World Cup and we've gone nowhere but backwards. Again - we have the players to do better and we currently have a Blackcaps team that are in no-man's-land and a White Ferns team who were dominated in two must-win games.

It sucks and no one is taking responsibility, besides those White Ferns players who copped it on the chin. Is everything being done to make the White Ferns the best women's cricket team in the world, which they easily could be? It doesn't look like it, thus making it unfair on the players who have to live with their lack of clutch in a World Cup.

What we can hold on to is that there's a bright future ahead, I'm certain of that. Just as I feel responsibility to highlight how talented this young wave of kiwi cricketers is - male and female as we saw Amelia Kerr, Kasperek, Hannah Rowe do the job at the World Cup - I have to highlight how crappy things are now. Trust me; we have enough cricketing quality to be a major force in international cricket over the next five years.

I'm not convinced that the decision-makers believe that, nor am I convinced that they will put adequate systems in place to ensure that kiwi cricket achieves what it's capable of.

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