After the woes of the NZ top order batting over the weekend and listening to my old mate Mark Richardson on the radio I thought I would add my view. This from a former player who started as a reasonably conservative No 3 for Canterbury and from an extensive coaching background.

The players came in for a lot of criticism for lack of technique. This from former players such as MD Crowe whom could REALLY play and from the bowlers such as Simon Doull who knows about batting weaknesses.

My angle is not that the players had poor technique, MD Crowe can tell you this better than I can. My argument is that NZ Cricket has to be careful on the direction of the development of players.

From coaching many young and older batsmen I know that it is very easy to coach a guy between 10 and 14 years old. This is when Billy Ibadulla moulded Glenn Turners' fine game and Nathan Astle had the benefit of Walter Hadlee's coaching in Christchurch amongst others.

To make a comparison I will use the analogy of building a house. The builder is the coach and the house is a guy's technique. The builder evaluates whether it is worth knocking a house down, fixing it up, leaving it alone or moving on to a new section.

When a guy reaches 20 or 21 his house is pretty fully built. When he is 12 or 13 the concrete slab or foundations may be down but not much more.

At under age tournaments a player with "talent" has a house which normally works well, then he takes his house to first class cricket at about 20 or 21. If his house is effective at first class cricket he makes the move to international level.

By playing with and against the best he then gets the opportunity to have a look at Stephen Fleming's, Sachin Tendulkar's or Martin Crowe's house. He didn't really get invited to their parties before and see how their houses stayed warm, dry and efficient.

So he visits their homes. He sees they have north facing windows to reduce energy costs. The kitchen is in the east to warm the place in the morning. The bedroom gets the evening sun.

This new guy goes, "Heck, their houses work well!"
"My kitchen is in the south so it gets mouldy. My living room is in the south east so it takes heaps of energy to keep it warm." Their house works but it takes a lot of effort to keep it running well. This is like many first class players who work really hard to maintain slightly unusual techniques. They work well due to the work put in. This does not mean to say they could have a much easier road and score quicker and in a safer method if their technique was more efficient.

So these players often look at the best houses they see and realise how their own homes could be so much better and say to the builder (coach), "I want Stephen Flemings house."
The builder (coach) looks at them in horror and says, "You sure?" – The guy says 'yes”.
"I want my windows to face north and to move my kitchen and bedroom so then my house will be much more efficient."
The builder replies, "That will take me six months work to change the internal structure of your house and while rebuilding it from the inside out it will be only held up by strong poles."
"If you get Hurricane Warne or Hurricane Lee coming through there is a high chance the whole lot will fall down."

The guy says, "I want to do it."
The builder (coach) does his sums and says, "I can build 20 new houses on foundations in the proper way by the time I try and fix the internal structure of yours, it is just not worth the time and money, I will go and build more houses instead."

But this is not what happens now with NZ Cricket. The top coaches are working with the top players for infintisimal improvement at a large cost. They don't get to build 20 homes they just get to fix the structures at the top.

I often hear people say that players are over coached. In reality players get to the top and take a look at Sachin's house and realise what they lack.

So they demand that the builder (coach) change their house. The builder is like, "Hell, please just leave it alone, it works the best it can," knowing how hard it is to move internal walls – But the players are determined. It is their future at stake.

That top coach who re moulds one Black Cap very slightly could have in the same time given a good strong house to 20 odd 13 year olds that would not need to be re modelled in 10 years time. Once you have the basic game you can just go out there and play. All the additions, such as the ramp or flick to fine leg, can come as a matter of course.

This is the real difficulty for NZ Cricket. We now have a huge staff of coaches devoted to the highest level. But this is where the least changes can be made. Guys' structures are pretty set.

In the past there was a large coaching structure in place which sought to give the young players this coaching but this was eroded when Martin Snedden was at the forefront. Maybe this was due to the players being paid more and money funnelled that way but who knows.

As Wayne Bennett says, he does not want to work on individual techniques when a guy gets to the top level. He wants this done at the levels below. He just wants them to come in and function as part of the unit and focus on the team plan.

So if we want to see more Martin Crowes, Stephen Flemings and Glenn Turners these young talents need to be given the basics by the likes of the Billy Ibadulla and Walter Hadlee. Then you have those basics for the rest of your career.