Tim Robinson

And that's a generous deed from New Zealand cricket.

And you can factor in like a Tim Robinson getting a BBL gig.

The casual contracts, you could actually bring it all together and say this is a very generous deed from New Zealand cricket that may have some cold counsel negatively working against it.

But for the betterment of New Zealand cricket, I think this generous deed should be, like this should happen.

So I want Bevan Jacobs to get that experience.

I want Bevan Jacobs to go up a level.

I want Tim Robinson to go up a level and play BBL.

But the one player I kept thinking about was Van Allen.

So, yeah, we've seen the value of Hopesy, who knows these players that we've been searching for this year, having to do the legwork very well because he's been around the world in the leagues as Ricky Ponting's right-hand man.

And we found Tim Robinson, a top-order power hitter, a little unknown.

He's starting to make a name for himself.

So he could surprise, we're hoping.

And I think some of these players who have made these contract, casual contract decisions may be in for a rude awakening because they might not play a whole lot of cricket for the Black Caps anymore, even though they can, and they will.

But even someone like Tim Robinson, that opportunity's gone somewhere else.

And the Michael Bracewell, like we've talked about, um, a lot of these players, whether it's a Mark Chapman, um, or anyone else, we have talked about the, the depth that the Black Caps have in all these positions.

And the Michael Bracewell position is a position where the Black Caps have ample depth.

So he was being, his test role was diminishing year on year, series on series, in fact, and that's the common theme here.

All these guys who are making this decision, they're ma- they're one format Black Caps, and ma- most of them are 1.5 format Black Caps, where they might get a few ODIs here and there.

Like Tim Robinson might play a few ODIs specifically when we're dealing in, uh, like second tier Black Caps ODI teams.

Um, some other guy like Michael Bracewell, Mark Chapman, they don't really feel like first 11 ODI cricketers.

Mitchell Santner is one of our best T20 International batters this year.

He's better than Ravindra, better than Daryl Mitchell, better than Mark Chapman, better than Tim Robinson.

And he's captain.

He's a leader for New Zealand cricket.

How dare they pick the players in the peak of their careers?

Yeah.

How dare you select Tim Seifert, who's... like 32 years old and he's one of the best team 20 batters in the world um but if you are thinking along those lines well you want bevan you want runs from bevan jacobs because bevan jacobs is scoring runs now i'll mention some names mark chapman's not playing anymore tim robinson's a young batter but i'm not worried about losing tim robinson to anything else If we've got Bevan Jacobs.

Bevan Jacobs is the man.

You know, Courtney Clark and all of these guys.

Robinson, I think, was there as well.

But it was a completely, completely different side.

When I look at this side on paper, This is a good cricket side.

So maybe we're coming back to that.

It sounds like you're coming off the back fence there.

But what did you make of Jacobs? Because you named a bunch of guys there, Courtney Clark, Tim Robinson, there's been Mohamed Abbas, Mitch Hay.

There's a bunch of other guys, but they've looked at this and they've gone, the one person we hope at least is in the mix, in this T20 mix, and we want to kind of promote is BJ Jacobs.

Finn Allen, 62 T20s, 28 the average, 170 his strike rate.

And then you look at a player like Tim Robinson, up and coming, 31 T20s, averaging 26, strike rate 136.

So Ravindra's not really in that top tier.

Group, really, as far as T20 format's concerned, yes, his bowling is handy at times, but So if you were going to pick our best, it has to be Seifert and Allen at the moment in the T20 format for

Cousin Mark just got paid.

We're seeing even guys like Tim Robinson who are fringe New Zealand players opting out of contracts to chase this dream of franchise cricket.

What has it done for you and where do you stand on this whole discussion around privatisation?

It's a great question and look from my point of view it's an obvious thing, there's a stage in your career where you need to kind of look what's happening next, look after your family and the opportunities you get are amazing.

If you want a kind of middle order option, Moa Bass obviously and then gives the left arm swing option.

I'm an enormous fan of Matt Boyle.

He's more a number four or five sort of player but big left handers we love in this country and he hits bombs for fun just went and played in county cricket for a few games as well tim robinson obviously has just been picked up by a big bash team he can bet anywhere in the top three and as we've seen already in his short new zealand career he can really score quickly so those are a few names that are floating around and we'll see a few more i think emerge this upcoming domestic season the issue in new zealand at the moment and it's an enormous discussion point globally is no one really wants to be an opening bat anymore because yeah it's it may it's we already knew it was really tough but with the way that pictures are now early on that pictures now are designed in a lot of places around the world, to do a lot very early and then flatten out pretty much.

And it's a really, really tough job.

Cousin Mark just got paid.

We're seeing even guys like Tim Robinson, who are fringe New Zealand players, opting out of contracts to chase this dream of franchise cricket.

What has it done for you, and where do you stand on this whole discussion around privatisation?

It's a great question and look from my point of view it's an obvious thing there's a stage in your career where you need to kind of look what's happening next look after your family and the opportunities you get are amazing but certainly it's been interesting having a few years of playing a lot of franchise cricket and then coming back to New Zealand cricket and the environment's definitely different it's a bit more transactional with these franchise tournaments which is understandable you know you're kind of coming in as a gun for hire and if you don't have a good tournament, they'll find another gun for hire.

We're here to discuss some Aotearoa sporting matters, as we always do.

Uh, at the moment on a Tuesday, we've got some funky little bits of Kiwi cricket, uh, with Tim Robinson dipping over to his Aussie T20 job.

Similar vibe to Mark Chapman and Mitchell Santner, even though Santner, uh, didn't take up that Aussie T20 job, so we'll get into some of that.

Got some domestic cricket notes as well, and we'll see what else pops up on the cricketing radar as we talk through, uh, some other stuff like Wellington Phoenix.

I'm saying Aaron Cartwright, like watch for that dude, 'cause he's a baller.

Let's get into a little bit of cricket.

We did have news that Tim Robinson will be playing, uh, the Big Bash League.

And he, he follows Mark Chapman in switching their contract status.