In less than a year, New Zealand Cricket has made the biggest strategic call in its modern history, and it has paid a heavy price for it.
Consider the record. Last December, chief executive Scott Weenink resigned after what he called a different view from several member associations and the players’ association on “the best role for T20 cricket in New Zealand.” In March, the board voted 7–0 to back NZ20, a privately owned, six-team domestic league, over putting New Zealand teams into Australia’s Big Bash. Board member Dion Nash resigned within hours. The chief strategy and financial officer has since left, and so has the long-serving head of public affairs, who told staff he had lost confidence in the board’s integrity. NZC posted a preliminary NZ$7.3 million loss for the year to July, four times its budget. Last month Sir Richard Hadlee wrote to the board saying he was embarrassed to have his name attached to the organisation. And on October 22, NZC walked away from its planned Major League Cricket franchise to focus on home.
All of it traces back to one bet: a bet that NZC’s own consultant, Deloitte, scored 2 out of 10, according to individuals with knowledge of its report. As of today, that bet still has no announced investor and no signed licence. It has already missed one launch window.
The case for NZ20 is real
It would be easy to read that list as a verdict. It isn’t. The strategy behind NZ20 is defensible, and in some ways it is the more ambitious choice.
The board has set out four reasons for the decision. A capital fund, built from the sale of teams, to support community cricket, which NZC’s constitution says is why it exists. Six teams spread across the country rather than one or two clubs in someone else’s competition. A significant ownership stake in the league at no cost to NZC. And, the board said, the backing of the people who run the game locally: the major associations and the players.
Underneath those reasons is a single idea: control. Join the Big Bash and New Zealand’s T20 future becomes a line item in Cricket Australia‘s plans. Back NZ20 and NZC keeps a stake in its own product, its own window and its own pathway.
There is precedent for the model, too. When the ECB sold stakes in The Hundred‘s teams, the money went back into the wider game. Building an asset and sharing the upside with the people who sustain the sport is not a reckless idea. For a board whose finances can swing from a NZ$7.3 million loss to a forecast NZ$10 million surplus depending on whether India tours, it is arguably a prudent one.
The case against is just as real
Few people are better placed to weigh the decision than Justin Vaughan. The former Black Cap ran NZC from 2007 to 2011, through the birth of the IPL, the rebel Indian Cricket League and the Christchurch earthquake. “I can’t think of a bigger decision for New Zealand Cricket in the past two or three decades,” he told the Sunday Star Times this week.
Vaughan does not dismiss NZ20. He describes himself as “conservative by nature” and sets out the risks plainly. New Zealand faces “an uphill battle” getting a domestic franchise competition to commercial success “because of the size of our market and the time zones we operate in.” He cannot think of a comparable league in a comparable market that has worked. “We are not India. This can’t be the IPL.”
He also points out that NZC is selling “assets that you can’t get back.” And his preferred model is neither of the two options the board weighed. He would put two New Zealand teams in the Big Bash, fed by a domestic competition that also draws young Australian players. He points to the Warriors, Auckland FC, the Phoenix and the Breakers as proof that New Zealand teams can thrive in Australian competitions without anyone losing face.
NZC’s own consultant was not convinced either. The board has confirmed that Deloitte’s analysis favoured exploring the Big Bash option further, citing financial upside and governance. That undersells it. According to individuals with knowledge of the report, Deloitte reportedly rated the Big Bash option 7 out of 10. It rated NZ20 2 out of 10. The board went the other way. That is its right, and it explained its reasons. But it did so more than six months after the vote, and days after Hadlee’s letter became public.
Nor was the push for NZ20 quite the united front it has been presented as. cricexec understands the drive came from the players’ association and four of the six major associations. Northern Districts and Otago had reportedly not committed. The board, in effect, went along.
That changes how the 7–0 vote should be read. At first glance, it looked decisive. It looks less so if the board was following its stakeholders rather than leading them, against a score of 7 to 2 from the adviser it hired.
The strategy is not the problem. The silence is
NZ20 may well be the right call. But NZC has made it almost impossible for anyone outside the room to judge.
The Deloitte report remains confidential. When the board’s own adviser scored the chosen option 2 out of 10, a one-paragraph summary of its findings is not enough. The board’s own chair has said it “should have provided more information about the process.” Staff, life members and a former CEO are now asking the same questions in public. Vaughan lists them:
- Who is investing?
- What terms will NZC mandate to that investor?
- What shareholding will NZC have?
- What is the governance of the new competition?
- How much control will NZC really have?
- How much revenue will NZC get from it every year?
- What happens to January, and to the core business of international cricket?
None of these are hostile questions. They are the questions any board member, sponsor or broadcaster would ask before committing. Some answers will depend on negotiations still under way. But the principles behind them do not: a minimum NZC stake, its board seats, a revenue floor, a protected international summer, and what happens if the league fails. NZC can publish those now.
The cost of not doing so is already visible. A decision this large needs the cricket community behind it. Instead, NZC is spending its energy defending its process rather than selling its product. Investors notice that kind of thing.
The calendar is the next test
There is one more question that NZC cannot answer on its own: where does NZ20 fit?
The league was meant to launch in January 2027. It was pushed back to December 2027 partly because home Tests against Australia and Sri Lanka left too little room. Its own establishment chair has said it must sit “alongside, not against, international cricket.”
That is why Geoff Allott’s call last month for fixed windows in the global calendar matters more than it first sounded. “Having more cricket is not necessarily the right answer,” he said. “Having more valued cricket absolutely is.” Vaughan agrees that the ICC needs to take the lead, and that the current patchwork of bilateral series and franchise leagues “is not good for the game.”
The ICC is expected to settle the 2027–31 Future Tours Programme this month. A small league in a small market cannot survive being squeezed every summer. If NZC wants NZ20 to work, the case for a protected window has to be made now, loudly and with allies.
What NZC should do next
The bet has been placed. Re-running the Big Bash debate helps no one. But three things would make it a far better bet.
First, publish the principles of the licence before it is signed: NZC’s minimum stake, governance rights, revenue share and exit terms. Second, when the investor is chosen, name them and explain why. Third, set out the fallback. If NZ20 underperforms, what happens to the domestic game and to the players?
Vaughan’s sharpest line is also his simplest: “It’s hard to step back from it once you’ve made that decision.” That is a reason to make the decision carefully and in the open. It is not a reason never to make it.
New Zealand Cricket has chosen to own rather than rent. It is a brave choice, and it may prove a smart one. But ownership comes with an obligation to tell the other stakeholders what they are buying into. So far, NZC has asked its game to trust it. For its own sake, and the sake of cricket in New Zealand, it is time it gave the game some more answers.
