The David White Era

On taking office in 1975 Robert Muldoon stated his objective was to leave New Zealand no worse than he found it.  While that quote aged badly it’s a pretty good litmus test when assessing a leader’s time in office.

If you judge him by where he left NZC compared to what it was like when he started David White  did a great job.  Or in 2023 parlance he met those metrics.

As with any role his tenure had its moments.  He inherited an organisation close to insolvency, with the flagship men’s side in complete disarray.  The previous incumbent was famous for his leaks and employing an Australian hockey guy with a clipboard to sort things out.

Player power was rampant, and not overly constructive.  That in itself may not be so bad, but bitter factional player power factions was just the worst.

Down sides were being blindsided in the PR battle over the captaincy change and the handling of the Scott Kuggeleijn case.

The captaincy change in 2012 showed that NZC was really thin on the ground in terms of crisis management and comms.  With White in Dubai for an ICC meeting it was non-existent in fact.  That was addressed pretty quickly and has grown to a situation where the NZC media team is very proactive in providing numerous daily updates from overseas tours.

In the case of Kuggeleijn the approach seemed to be the old Crisis Management 101 tactic of say nothing and it will go away.  That may have been true in the past, but in the days of Social Media in conjunction with the Me Too movement, that proved to be a mistake.  You would like to think that everyone can learn from that.

Despite that, under White NZC made pretty good strides in developing the women’s game and Māori / Pasifika too which must be a commitment of whoever replaces him.  Although the White Ferns haven’t achieved to the same level of their men’s counterparts the level down has seen big growth.  There are now 96 contracted women’s cricketers, and an increase of 2000 female players over the last 18 months.

But given all the other issues (minimal say at the top table, growth of T20 leagues and dealing with COVID) to sustain that performance on the field and on the balance sheet has been something

There was also 12 years of apparent peace with the players’ association which was quite impressive given hilarious escapades of the decade the preceded that.

During that time there was the overpowering growth of T20 franchise cricket and the introduction of pay parity with female players.  Negotiating T20 leagues is no easy business.  Look at the struggles that South Africa and the West Indies have encountered during that period.

Then there was the happenstance genius of the SPARK deal which has ended up with FTA coverage for the next 3 years.  That was not pure luck however; a backup option was always part of the original six year deal.  You could suggest it was a well negotiated deal.

But he still had his critics.  Let’s face it, he was not a great orator (and it went a bit falsetto when under pressure) so that was one area where Muldoon had it over him.  And moving televised content to an online platform was a bit pre-emptive.  It’s one of this country’s great mysteries as to the extent that wound up people not confined to Boomers.

Even the dreaded Black Clash seems to be popular, so perhaps he got lucky with that one too.

And there is still the bizarre Auckland test cricket situation to resolve.  Good luck to whoever succeeds White with that one.