New Zealand Cricket, formerly the New Zealand Cricket Council, is the governing body for professional

cricket in New Zealand Cricket is the most popular summer sport in New Zealand, second only in total sporting popularity to rugby. New Zealand is one of the twelve countries that take part in Test match cricket. History The beginnings of cricket in New Zealand T ...

. Cricket is the most popular and highest profile summer

sport in New Zealand Sport in New Zealand largely reflects the nation's colonial heritage, with some of the most popular sports being rugby union, rugby league, cricket, association football, basketball, horse racing and netball, which are primarily played in Co ...

. New Zealand Cricket operates the

New Zealand cricket team The New Zealand national cricket team represents New Zealand in men's international cricket. Nicknamed the Black Caps (), they played their first Test in 1930 against England in Christchurch, becoming the fifth country to play Test cricket. ...

, organising Test tours and

One-Day International One Day International (ODI) is a format of cricket, played between two teams with international status, in which each team faces a fixed number of fifty overs, with the game lasting up to 7 hours. The World Cup, generally held every four yea ...

s with other nations. It also organises domestic cricket in New Zealand, including the

Plunket Shield New Zealand has had a domestic first-class cricket championship since the 1906–07 season. Since the 2009–10 season it has been known by its original name of the Plunket Shield. History The Plunket Shield competition was instigated in Octo ...

first-class competition,

The Ford Trophy The Ford Trophy is the main domestic List A limited overs cricket competition in New Zealand. Previous sponsor State Insurance did not renew naming rights in 2009, resulting in the competition being renamed the ''New Zealand Cricket one-day co ...

men's domestic one-day competition, the

Hallyburton Johnstone Shield The Hallyburton Johnstone Shield is the premier domestic women's one-day cricket competition in New Zealand. The tournament began in 1935–36, as a first-class competition, but is now played as a 50-over competition, with six provincial teams ...

women's domestic one-day competition, as well as the

Men's Super Smash The Men's Super Smash, currently named the Dream11 Super Smash for sponsorship purposes until 2026, is a men's domestic Twenty20 cricket competition in New Zealand. Since the 2018–19 season, the competition runs alongside the Women's Super Sma ...

and

Women's Super Smash The Women's Super Smash, known for sponsorship reasons as the Dream11 Super Smash, is a women's Twenty20 competition organised by New Zealand Cricket. The competition began in 2007–08 and features six teams, who play each other twice in a dou ...

domestic

Twenty20 Twenty20 (abbreviated T20) is a shortened format of cricket. At the professional level, it was introduced by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) in 2003 for the county cricket, inter-county competition. In a Twenty20 game, the two t ...

competitions. Scott Weenink is the Chief Executive Officer of New Zealand Cricket. Tom Latham is the current Blackcaps Test captain, succeeding

Tim Southee Timothy Grant Southee (born 11 December 1988), is a former New Zealand international cricketer who has captained New Zealand cricket team in all formats of the game. He is a right-arm medium-fast bowler and a hard-hitting lower order batsman. ...

who still represents the team.

Sophie Devine Sophie Frances Monique Devine (born 1 September 1989) is a New Zealand sportswoman, who has represented New Zealand in both cricket for the New Zealand national women's cricket team (''White Ferns''), and in field hockey as a member of the Ne ...

is the current White Ferns captain.

History

On 27 December 1894, 12 delegates from around New Zealand met in

Christchurch Christchurch (; ) is the largest city in the South Island and the List of cities in New Zealand, second-largest city by urban area population in New Zealand. Christchurch has an urban population of , and a metropolitan population of over hal ...

to form the

New Zealand Cricket Council New Zealand Cricket, formerly the New Zealand Cricket Council, is the governing body for professional cricket in New Zealand. Cricket is the most popular and highest profile summer sport in New Zealand. New Zealand Cricket operates the New Z ...

Heathcote Williams John Henley Heathcote-Williams (15 November 1941 – 1 July 2017), known as Heathcote Williams, was an English poet, actor, political activist and dramatist. He wrote a number of book-length polemical poems including ''Autogeddon'', ''Falling ...

was elected the inaugural president, and Charles Smith the secretary. The council's aims were to promote and co-ordinate cricket in New Zealand and to organize international tours from and to New Zealand.

Cricket development

New Zealand Cricket has established a high performance cricket training centre based at Lincoln University. It also operates a grassroots development programme for school children called 'MILO Kiwi Cricket'. John Wright, former NZ opening batsman, was appointed acting high performance manager for NZC in November 2007 before taking up the head coach position in December 2010. Former Australian coach John Buchanan was appointed as NZC Director of Cricket in May 2011 as the architect of a new high performance programme. He performed a number of key duties including the establishment of clear and consistent national coaching philosophies, the implementation of a talent identification programme and oversaw the Selection Panel.

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

has many private

cricket Cricket is a Bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball game played between two Sports team, teams of eleven players on a cricket field, field, at the centre of which is a cricket pitch, pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two Bail (cr ...

academies. The Bracewell Cricket Academy based at

Rathkeale College Rathkeale College is a state-integrated Anglican boys secondary school on the outskirts of Masterton, New Zealand. History Rathkeale College was established in 1963 to complete the family of schools managed by the St Matthew's Schools Trust ...

is one of the largest cricket academies, providing an Overseas Cricket Development Programme, a Pre-Season Coaching Camp and a Festival of Cricket. There are over 100,000 registered cricketers in New Zealand. By way of comparison, Australia and the UK have around 500,000 each. According to Mark O'Neill, New Zealand's batting coach from 2007 to 2009, the competition at club level in NZ is nowhere near as intense as in Australia.

"In
Sydney Sydney is the capital city of the States and territories of Australia, state of New South Wales and the List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city in Australia. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Syd ...
there are 20 first grade teams, each club has five grades. To get to first grade you've got to be a friggin' good player and once you get there the competition is very, very fierce. Unfortunately it's not the same standard n NZ Competition is everything and the only way the New Zealand guys are going to get that is to play the world's best players."

Domestic competitions

New Zealand Cricket operates the men's, women's and men's and women's Under 19

, organising Test tours and

s with other nations. It also organises domestic and Māori domestic cricket in New Zealand, including the

first-class competition,

men's domestic one-day competition, the

women's domestic one-day competition, as well as the

and

domestic

competitions.

Domestic Teams

Men's Teams

New Zealand Cricket provides competition structures for the following Major Association domestic teams: *

Auckland Aces The Auckland cricket team represent the Auckland region and are one of six New Zealand domestic first class cricket teams. Governed by the Auckland Cricket Association they are the most successful side having won 28 Plunket Shield titles, ten ...

Canterbury Canterbury (, ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and UNESCO World Heritage Site, in the county of Kent, England; it was a county borough until 1974. It lies on the River Stour, Kent, River Stour. The city has a mild oceanic climat ...

(known as Canterbury Kings for Twenty20) *

Central Stags The Central Stags, formerly known as Central Districts, are a first-class cricket team based in central New Zealand. They are the men's representative side of the Central Districts Cricket Association. They compete in the Plunket Shield firs ...

* Northern Districts (known as Northern Brave for Twenty20) *

Otago Volts The Otago cricket team, nicknamed the Volts since the 1997–98 season, are a New Zealand first-class cricket team which first played representative cricket in 1864.Otago cricket history, '' Evening Star'', issue 21864, 30 October 1934, p. 4.Av ...

Wellington Firebirds The Wellington Firebirds are one of six New Zealand men's first-class cricket teams that make up New Zealand Cricket. It is based in Wellington. It competes in the Plunket Shield first class (4-day) competition, The Ford Trophy domestic one d ...

Women's Teams

New Zealand Cricket involves the following women's domestic teams: *

Auckland Hearts The Auckland Hearts is the women's representative cricket team for the New Zealand region of Auckland. They play their home games at Eden Park Outer Oval. They compete in the Hallyburton Johnstone Shield one-day competition and the Women's S ...

Canterbury Magicians The Canterbury Magicians is the women's representative cricket team for the New Zealand region of Canterbury. They play their home games at Hagley Oval, Christchurch. They compete in the Hallyburton Johnstone Shield one-day competition and the ...

Central Hinds The Central Hinds are the women's representative cricket team of Central Districts Cricket Association, based in central New Zealand. The Major Association team is the only female team to draw players from both the main islands of New Zealand. T ...

* Northern Districts (known as Northern Brave for Twenty20) *

Otago Sparks The Otago Sparks is the women's cricket representative team for the New Zealand region of Otago and the surrounding area. They play their home games at University Oval, Dunedin. They compete in the Hallyburton Johnstone Shield one-day competition ...

Wellington Blaze The Wellington Blaze is the women's representative cricket team for the New Zealand city of Wellington. They play their home games at Basin Reserve. They compete in the Hallyburton Johnstone Shield one-day competition and the Women's Super Smash ...

Funding

New Zealand Cricket derives most of its revenue from the sale of two types of broadcasting rights. # Broadcasting rights to home internationals. # A share of the

broadcasting rights Broadcasting rights (often also called media rights) are rights which a broadcasting organization negotiates with a commercial concern - such as a sports governing body or film distributor - in order to show that company's products on television o ...

the ICC sells to its tournaments, such as the World Cup. Host nations pick up all the expenses of touring teams, but get sole access to all broadcast rights and gate receipts. In November 2007 it was announced that NZC had made a 5-year deal for the broadcasting rights to home internationals for NZ$65.4m with

Sony Entertainment Television Sony Entertainment Television (abbreviated as SET) is an Indian Hindi-language general entertainment pay television channel that was launched in 1995 and is owned by Culver Max Entertainment, a division of Sony Pictures. History This chann ...

. The previous four-year deal between NZC and ESPN-Star was for only NZ$14.4m. Part of the 5-fold increase in value is due to the Indian team's tour of NZ in 2009. Immediately prior to the 2009 Indian tour of NZ the ''Sunday Star Times'' reported that "NZ Cricket hits $25m jackpot". The article claimed that NZ Cricket will get $1 million for each of the 22 days the Indians take the field and that NZ Cricket had insured against loss of income for the sale of TV rights due to bad weather. NZC boss

Justin Vaughan Justin Thomas Caldwell Vaughan (born 30 August 1967) is a New Zealand cricket administrator and former cricketer who played six Test matches and 18 One Day Internationals between 1992 and 1997. He is a doctor of medicine by profession. Life ...

also said that a tour by India generates "many times" more income than tours by

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

and

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

and that the Indian tour was worth more to NZC than the payout from the

Cricket World Cup The ICC Men's Cricket World Cup is a quadrennial world cup for cricket in One Day International (ODI) format, organised by the International Cricket Council (ICC). The tournament is one of the world's most viewed sporting events and consid ...

, which was around $20m. The article also states that over the past two years, NZC's income has been around $30m, but this year (2009) Vaughan is hoping to get more than $40 million from broadcast rights, sponsorship and ticket sales. In 2007, the ICC sold the rights to broadcast the World Cup, the

Champions Trophy The ICC Champions Trophy, formerly known as the ICC Knock Out Trophy, is an international One Day International (ODI) cricket tournament organised by the International Cricket Council (ICC) contested by international men's teams. Inaugurat ...

and the

ICC World Twenty20 The ICC Men's T20 World Cup, formerly the ICC World Twenty20, is a biennial world cup for cricket in Twenty20 International (T20I) format, organised by the International Cricket Council (ICC). It was held in every odd year from 2007 to 2009, ...

ESPN Star Sports Fox Sports Asia (formerly ESPN Star Sports) was a pan-Asian pay television network broadcasting in Asia, operated by Fox Networks Group Asia Pacific, a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company (Southeast Asia) Pte. Ltd. It also oversaw a version o ...

until 2015 for US$1 billion. NZC will receive a slice of that. In November 2017, Star Sports acquired the broadcast and digital rights for New Zealand Cricket for all men's and women's international matches being organised in the country till April 2020 for the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia.

Partnership with USA Cricket (2010)

On 19 December 2010, after months of negotiations, New Zealand Cricket announced it had signed a business deal with

USACA The United States of America Cricket Association (USACA), headquartered in Miami Beach, was the national governing body for all cricket in the United States, until it was replaced by USA Cricket in 2019. The board was formed in 1965. USACA wa ...

which would see New Zealand play a certain number of games in the US and also make its players available to participate in any

leagues in the USA. A new company was created called Cricket Holdings America LLC. This new company will hold the rights to hold Twenty20 leagues within the United States. New Zealand Cricket chief Justin Vaughan said he was happy with the development because New Zealand was a small market and to exploit a market will allow New Zealand Cricket to secure its funding in the long-term and will also allow cricket to develop popularity as a game in the United States of America.

References

Cricket Cricket is a Bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball game played between two Sports team, teams of eleven players on a cricket field, field, at the centre of which is a cricket pitch, pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two Bail (cr ...

Cricket administration in New Zealand