After a minute to let some thoughts simmer and feel the reaction from the release of this summer's cricketing schedule, a few things have caught my eye. The first - and most important - was the reaction to my ranty rant about the lack of Test cricket.

My perception on how the kiwi cricketing public feels about Test cricket was based on the interest the Niche Cache gets when writing about Test cricket, what I see when I watch Test cricket and all of that could come under a 'general vibe'. I didn't have anything concrete, so to see so many people voice their concerns on Facebook and Twitter not only gave me warm-fuzzies because it reinforced my perception, it also showed that Test cricket is still very much a fabric of kiwi cricketing culture.

And we, as the public, need to hold on to that. We are being fed a narrative that this isn't the case, that Test cricket in Aotearoa needs help - hence NZC is so eager to push this day/night Test. That narrative suits NZC perfectly because they want money and they get their money from limited overs cricket, so for them to push a yarn about y'all not being ride or die Test lovers is very convenient.

It also shows that NZC is a money-hungry beast and in 2017, with so many enlightened young folk moving their way through life, greed is easy to spot. Prioritising the financial side of things will see NZC decision-makers fall, mainly because we as the public hold the power and if NZC get too greedy, they'll feel the burn.

Chasing money is all good... if that money is reinvested into Aotearoa cricket. Which it simply isn't. Do you see many 'A' tours, Under-19 tours? No, we might get the odd tour but no where near what is required and that's just for the lads. Do you see any female tours for teams below the White Ferns? No and it's fairly obvious that this money isn't being reinvested into domestic cricket because if it was, every domestic game would be live-streamed, highlights would be on Youtube and domestic cricket would be given a platform to thrive.

And again, that domestic cricket angle only applies to the men. Women's domestic cricket may as well not exist given how little effort is put into by NZC.

NZC want limited overs cricket because it makes money, so where is that money going?
NZC's PR department extends out to the mainstream media and they pedalled hype around a day/night Test as well as a narrative of international cricket kinda moving away from Test cricket...

"The men's schedule is a pointer to two things: the international program globally is undergoing change; and another World Cup is looming."

A World Cup is two years away and, as a World Cup is every four years, a World Cup is always looming.

The international program may be undergoing change, but NZC don't appear to be following that change. NZC appear to be doing everything differently while other cricketing nations have found a wonderful balance of Test cricket and limited overs cricket. NZC have restricted the Blackcaps to just nine Tests in the next year and a half (from July 2017 to January 2019), here's how those nine Tests rank against the other notable Test playing nations...

England: 21
India: 20
Sri Lanka: 17
Australia: 16
South Africa: 15
Pakistan: 13
West Indies: 12
NZ: 9
Bangladesh: 8

So not only are teams like Sri Lanka, Pakistan and West Indies - who are on a similar level to Aotearoa - playing more Tests than Aotearoa, the 'powerhouse' teams who apparently lead the T20 revolution, are playing heaps of Tests. If Test cricket was struggling or not as attractive, you wouldn't have five teams playing more than 15 Tests during this period. The T20 revolution is real, so real that these teams have found ways for Test cricket to maintain a respected standing among that revolution.

And to be succinct; if Test cricket wasn't making money, you definitely would not have England and India playing over 20 Tests.

Oh and you don't play that many Tests by playing two-Test series. Aotearoa and Bangladesh are the only teams to have a Test cricket diet mostly made up of two-Test series; I've never seen Aotearoa host a five-Test series.

Since the release of this schedule, the Australian pay situation has reached a conclusion. From the coverage of the agreement between Australia's Cricketers Association and Cricket Australia, two things stood out. First:

"Players will also get a greater say on scheduling through a new advisory group."

This line was the very last line in a yarn I read from the Sydney Morning Herald, tucked away right at the bottom. This may not be super relevant to that situation, but considering NZC's decision to neglect Test cricket, I wonder how different things would be if players were given a platform to share their thoughts through an advisory group.

We know players view Test cricket as the pinnacle, so they might want a few more Tests, they might want to play their favourite format a bit more.

However, this definitely isn't limited to Test cricket as NZC has consistently limited opportunities for kiwi cricketers to play in the Big Bash League. Their summer schedule once again blocks Blackcaps from playing BBL, not because they've scheduled Tests during this window but because their plethora of ODI and T20 cricket is during this window.

For whatever reason, NZC is putting their eggs in the international T20 cricket basket and that makes zero sense. International T20 will not exist in 10 years (maybe five) because franchise T20 cricket is awesome and NZC are effectively going toe-to-toe with the BBL by putting up international T20 as their representative. Inside of maybe, ya know, working in conjunction with a T20 tournament that is breaking all sorts of records for attendance and has swiftly become the pinnacle of T20 cricket.

I digress; NZC won't allow Aotearoa's best limited overs cricketers the opportunity to play BBL because they won't be allowed to leave their Blackcaps duties.

Perhaps, if players were given input, they would voice their desire for Test cricket to feature more prominently during the BBL so the likes of Colin Munro, Colin de Grandhomme, Martin Guptill, Ish Sodhi, etc., can play BBL.

Wait for the day when a limited overs Blackcap rejects a Blackcaps T20 series, or ODI to take part in the BBL. It'll happen soon and all power to them.

Then I saw that the Australian agreement features this:

"An increase in female player payments from $7.5million to $55.2million"

That's over five years, so it's not quite as crazy as it sounds but it clearly shows a monumental improvement how much money will be invested into female cricket. Purely speculation: my hunch is that NZC's investment in female cricket is nowhere near CA's investment in Australia, relative to how much money NZC makes.

Last year it was widely celebrated that NZC had offered a three-year deal to contract 15 White Ferns between $20,000 - $34,000 in a similar fashion to how the Blackcaps earn contracts. Again, CA makes way more money than NZC (duh) so comparing the two situations needs some context but even given that context the difference between the two is stark.

If all 15 White Ferns earned the max $34,000 contract (which only the likes of Suzie Bates and Amy Satterthwaite would), it would total an investment of $510,000 per year. This was celebrated as a 100 percent increase, while the proposed offer from CA to the players that was rejected by the players back in March (so we can kinda assume it's better now) was a 150 percent increase. That proposal included a note that female domestic cricketers would be offered contracts up to $52,000 - so the top Australian domestic contracts could be a lot more than the top White Ferns contracts.

Again, I must stress it's apples and oranges. Those figures just offer some context on the lack of something that NZC has patted themselves on the back for, when they could do so much more to adequately reimburse our female cricketers.

And this is all against the backdrop of NZC playing more limited overs cricket because it makes more money. Everyone should be questioning where that money's going because it's just a bit weird that Suzie Bates makes less than half of the average salary ($75,000) in Aotearoa for representing Aotearoa.

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