Cricket's new face seeks help of former stars

Kim Littlejohn says there is an invaluable role to play for the experienced former test players he fended off to get the job of New Zealand Cricket's national selection manager. The little-known Australian, Bowls Australia's high-performance manager for the past seven years, today conducted his first media interviews since assuming his new role at NZC headquarters in Lincoln. His appointment this month was controversial after beating former batting great, coach and highly regarded selector Glenn Turner, former batsman, coach and selector Mark Greatbatch, and former captain Ken Rutherford to the role. Critics point to Littlejohn's lack of cricket background at the top level and knowledge of the domestic game as reasons he shouldn't have got the job, though his experience in high-performance sport, sports management and communication is seen as ideal for the role, which is very much one of liasing and developing systems and processes, rather than watching and selecting cricketers. He will talk with the domestic coaches on a regular basis and report back to Black Caps coach John Wright, and while he has a say at the selection table, the final decision will be Wright's. The same will go for the White Ferns and under-19s, Littlejohn's tasked with developing a network of coaches and selectors around the country who can report back to him. He, in turn, reports to the coach. He said today he hoped the likes of Turner and Greatbatch (Rutherford is in South Africa) would be open to working with him. "I don't think we can throw those guys out,'' he said. "There's an invaluble role for all those guys to play in the system. They're the guys these athletes look up to and respect, so there are great opportunities for them to get involved in mentoring. "We may also need a back-up opinion at various stages, so it would be fantastic if we could engage these guys. We can't afford to chop them off.'' The 47-year-old said his major strength was communication, a key component of the role. He said the new structure would encourage transparency, consistency and better feedback for players, given their domestic coaches would basically become part of a large national selection panel. "We're taking cricket to where other professional sports are already at. We've moved the playing and the way we prepare our teams to become professional, but we probably haven't moved the selection process. "We've always relied on this group of people who have sat off to the side. We've now made the coaches accountable, they're the guys who understand the players better than anyone. They know their strengths, their weaknesses, and how tough they are mentally. "So we've opened the lines of communication to allow information to go backward and forward between them and the national setup.'' His initial task would be to introduce himself to all the major association coaches and meet them face-to-face before the season starts, so he can sit down and explain how the process works. He'd like to see as many matches as possible to get to know who the players are, "but the way the job is structured it's not necessary for me to sit at every game of cricket because we've already got people at those games who are better qualified to make the call on those players''.