Paul Wiseman: 'We don't have the numbers India or England have, so we have to be smart with what we've got'

Former New Zealand offspinner Paul Wiseman put the country's next generation of batters through their paces and oversaw their development at a camp in Chennai in June, ahead of tours of the subcontinent for both the senior and A teams. Upon return to New Zealand, Wiseman spoke to us about his role as a talent-identification manager handling the transition and development of the country's up and coming bowlers.

What were your impressions of Dean Foxcroft, Mitch Hay and Tim Robinson during the Chennai camp?
I haven't really met them in person yet since we got back from Chennai, but even within the first week, it was pretty obvious to see the gains they had made, especially from a batting perspective: understanding of the different surfaces - the black clay and the red clay - to get into the best positions to access the ball with some power and not get stuck, if you have players around the bat and that sort of thing. It won't be until they get into those situations again that we will see the true value of it. I think just in general, the way they approach spin and the standard of their game against spin has been hugely elevated since and during that trip.

Winter camps like the one you currently have at the NZ High Performance Centre in Lincoln, where you have a "marquee" protecting the wickets from the weather and simulating certain conditions ahead of tours - how have these camps benefited players?
The marquees have been a game-change for us. It gets pretty cold here in the middle of the winter; I think it was -2°C here last night. But we can still train all year around with the marquee and we can create our own little ecosystem where we can actually produce wickets that do turn.

We've got the Merlin bowling machine as well, which can replicate what a lot of these guys do face. But it's [not like how] you get an experience like being in Chennai when it's hot and humid and you've got different people bowling at you, and maybe you don't feel well all the time and those sorts of things. But for us to be able to train there [with the marquee] during the winter has been an absolute game-changer, and we have many camps, for both men and women throughout the winter. So it's been awesome.

You've been New Zealand's talent identification manager for over a decade. What drives you in this role?
You've aged me a bit there (laughs). It's getting close [to a decade].

Look, it's the same things that excite me as they did when I started [in 2015]. It gives me immense satisfaction to see young, raw talent coming through and becoming refined international cricketers. More importantly, to see them develop as people, as husbands, fathers, and becoming that rounded person we're all wanting to be. Cricket is not the most rounding game, and it takes a long time… you're away so many days. A lot of these guys are getting to have their lives outside of cricket going, and to get that balance is so crucial.

How do you strike a balance between player development and getting results at the age-group level?
Yeah, it's a tricky balance. We don't shy away from the fact that [we want] our players and coaches to be competitive. We want them to compete, but not at the detriment of the [player] development side of things. At the Under-19 World Cup, we try and get across to players as much as we can. It [the U-19 World Cup] is an incredible experience, if you're lucky enough to get it. But it's not a career-defining one.

Yes, you're going out to try and win every game, but as you would have seen during the last World Cup, all our players played. Who knows what the strongest side would have been, but that wasn't our priority. Our priority was to give as many players the experience we can, because we feel down the line that will benefit them more than just trying to win a U-19 World Cup.

If that [U-19 World Cup title] comes along, it's an awesome experience because it's extra games. But we're in it for the long term and for even the guys that miss out, it's not career-defining. Because of the size of our talent pool, we are able to keep some of those guys that don't make it in our high-performance programmes as well. So that's one of the advantages of having a smaller talent pool.

How do you make the most of that smaller talent pool and nurture them?
It's obvious that we don't have the sheer numbers that an India or Pakistan or England have, in terms of talent, and we don't have the resources around it. So we have to be quite smart with what we have got. We have to invest in what we think is the right talent but we also have to be able to give them time. We tend to be a little bit later developing, and that's probably because we encourage our athletes to play as many sports as they can until they have to make a decision [about which one to focus on].

A lot of our athletes could have been All Blacks and Black Caps, or hockey players or basketball players as well. So we've got a number of guys that play other sports to a high level, and the risk is we [might] lose them to that sport. But if we encourage them to do that, we're going to get more rounded persons and athletes, and by the time they chose to come to our sport, they will be a better athlete for it rather than specialising early. And then we also have to have a lot of patience, and understand that our sport may not be the one that they eventually choose.

It's becoming more competitive with even the likes of rugby now because of tournaments like the IPL. The pay has swung back in favour of cricket and you can probably have a longer career and have your head and your body at the end of it as well (laughs). So cricket is an attractive sport for young men and young women in New Zealand, especially from a financial perspective now.

New Zealand's senior team, especially the bowling attack, is in transition. How do you manage this phase?
We have had an incredible decade or so of talent that has been at the top. New Zealand cricket, for a long time, has had freakish years. If you go back to the Under-19s in 2009-10, there were 16 Black Caps that came out of that one year plus two other internationals - Logan van Beek, who has played for Holland, and Theo van Woerkom, who has played for Ireland. Tom Walsh, a shot putter, came out the same year. Just two years before that came [Kane] Williamson, [Trent] Boult and [Tim] Southee.

So there's no hiding that we had a freakish amount of players that came through at the same time. And obviously they're all of similar ages and will be transitioning into other parts of their life or other parts of the game. So we've got some of the New Zealand greats stepping out in the next few years and just recently as well, with Boulty.

You've got to replace those guys, but you can't just replace greats overnight. We need to focus on the areas of the goods and the very-goods and get them to the highest level they can be, and we have been blessed with a number of those guys as well - Lathams, Nicholls and Henrys. They are all now world-class players, and that comes from great work ethic and attitude and wanting to learn. Those sort of things we hold pretty dear in New Zealand cricket. We have to be patient with players coming through because it might not be possible to replace players like Trent Boult or Kane Williamson just like that.

But the likes of Will O'Rourke have stepped straight in and had instant success, and Ben Sears and Ben Lister as well. The thing that has happened is, there has been a bit of logjam with these very-goods and the greats, which has meant that our players, when they do get the chance, they have tended to have quite a few seasons under their belt. Over the last six-seven years, pretty much every guy that has debuted has come in and had success, which has been fantastic. So we need to keep that going and we have got some nice talent coming through - Rachin [Ravindra], Searsy and Will got their first central contracts, and there are a few other quicks coming through below them.

Give us a rundown of some of those up-and-coming fast bowlers. Sriram Krishnamurthy, who has been with the Wellington and Chennai Super Kings age-group coaching system, regards Sears very highly.
Ben Lister, in my mind, has a huge ceiling. Unfortunately he and the likes of Henry Shipley have been hampered by injury and illness over the last year or so. But they are still youngish men and are guys with big futures and hopefully opportunities to come.

Ben [Sears] and Will are different people and have got up to this level in different ways. Ben is a little bit older; he was with the New Zealand U-19 team in Bangladesh in 2016. And it has taken a little bit of time for his progress. You get niggles and injuries when you bowl as fast as he can. It's a natural thing for a fast bowler and now he has reached physical maturation, which hopefully means a lot of the major injuries are behind him. He's also been doing a law degree - a very smart man - and he's really starting to understand his game.

Will is a very fast learner and listens well and has taken a short period of time to get to where he's got to. He's managed to remain pretty injury-free up to this point, touch wood.

So, [it's about] managing these two young quicks, and the likes of Shipley and Lister and Matt Henry are obviously more experienced and matured. We've got to get [Kyle] Jamieson fit and back on the park as well. Nathan Smith is also handy with the bat, as is Zak Foulkes. Then there's Matt Fisher, who played in the 2018 U-19 World Cup. He's got good pace and has played for New Zealand A too. There's some really exciting talent there but we've got to manage them really well if we want to have consistent performances at the highest level.

Like Shipley, O'Rourke and Jamieson, their Canterbury team-mate Zak Foukes gives the attack a point of difference with his height and ability to generate steep bounce. What do you make of these tall, hit-the-deck quicks from Canterbury?
It's got to be one of the tallest bowling attacks in the world. Jamieson at 6'8'' and then you also have Michael Rae, who is probably 6'6'', and then the others are about 6'5''. Henners [Matt Henry] is shorter, but he's a genius. I don't know if we can get all those guys on the park at the same time but it will be a real test for any batter, I think. They are an exciting group and it would be great to see all of them fit in at the same time.

Rachin Ravindra has been one of the success stories of New Zealand and Wellington's age-group systems. Is that something the next generation resonates with?
Rachin is one of those kids who is self-made. He and his dad… the story has been repeated many times. He used to get up at five in the morning and drag his dad down to the indoor nets, so he was always going to be a very good cricketer. It was just a matter of when his chance would come along. His success and story has had a bit of knock-on effect, especially in Wellington where the young batters are training and hitting a lot of balls. You can't get away from hard work and being smart about things. It can get you a long way in life in anything that you do.

If you look around the domestic sides and even the Black Caps, the work ethic in those players has driven New Zealand Cricket to where it has got to, considering the small population that we have.

Beyond Mitch Santner and Ish Sodhi, even New Zealand's spin pool has depth now, with Ajaz Patel, Adi Ashok, Michael Rippon and Tim Pringle around. How pleased are you with the spin stocks?
We're probably the strongest we've been. Yes, we don't have a great [such as] in Dan Vettori right now but we've got some very-goods. Mitch Santner is such a wonderful white-ball bowler and has now become a red-ball bowler as well. The likes of the Rachins, [Glenn] Phillips and the [Michael] Bracewells and Santners that all bat as well. Foxcroft can also bowl, and Cole McConchie is another guy who bats and bowls. Adi and Tim Pringle are both injured at the moment but they're highly promising spinners and Rips [Michael Rippon] being a left-arm wristspinner. Rachin didn't bowl much at CSK because of the quality spinners there, but he can do a job.

Below that, there are some young spinners coming through. [Rahman Hekmat], the Auckland legspinner, unfortunately missed the U-19 World Cup earlier this year because of a stress fracture, and there's a mystery spinner coming up through Canterbury as well. So I'm really excited by it and we have got to invest a lot of time into these guys and give them the experience. It's a little bit like what we had in Chennai and in the marquees - to try and encourage our coaches [to nurture them]. Some of these pitches are becoming more conducive to spin, and the only way you get better is when you play. You can have talent but if you're not bowling overs in the games, it makes it difficult to progress.

The seam-friendly conditions across New Zealand mean some of these spinners are relegated to the sidelines. How do you deal with that challenge and give them more game time?
Yeah, it's challenging and frustrating for the likes of Ajaz. He takes a ten-for in Mumbai and then he sits on the sidelines the next time he's back home. It's hugely frustrating for him and it's hard to sit and watch, but you can understand it as well. The way Test match pitches are being developed now, they're often extreme because of the importance of winning Test matches and points at home to compete for a World Test Championship.

But the encouraging thing from last year is two of our Test pitches turned quite a lot. I think Nathan Lyon really enjoyed the Basin Reserve, which normally doesn't turn a lot but had turn and bounce to offer in that game. Seddon Park also turned, and the Bay Oval also offered something to spinners.

Unfortunately, we didn't really use the pitches that well because it was a little bit against the run of play. Normally it doesn't spin as much, so unfortunately we went a spinner light and it will be interesting to see if they [curators] produce the same ones this season.

But certainly in first-class cricket. Last season, a used wicket was used at Seddon Park and it turned. It was really cool and we saw some games being won by spinners on the last day. The more we can do that means it challenges the batters, close-in fielders and the captains, who have to think in a different way. You know it's good for the game, so we have to try and find ways of keeping bounce and pace in the middle two-thirds of the pitch and maybe the ends can a bit more conductive to spin. If we can do that, we can develop that sort of cricketer, who can perform in all conditions.