The players get all the credit.
The coach gets all the blame.
That is how that one works. It is brutal. And Gary Stead has been reminded of that reality this month.
The Black Caps coach is contracted until the middle of next year but his side’s early exit from the T20 World Cup has the critics poking him towards the plank.
Should he jump?
Should someone give him a nudge?
He certainly made some mistakes. The decision not to play any warm-up games is at the top of that list.
When you consider how little cricket some of the squad had played, it was an unfathomable call.
He might have got away with it had the Black Caps played Uganda or Papua New Guinea first. But they were ambushed by Afghanistan instead and let the West Indies escape in the next game.
Neither loss was terrible in isolation. But the sight of watching an undercooked squad stumble through was galling giving their lack of preparation.
Stead blamed logistics for ditching the planned warm-up games. And he might be the fall guy here for the players having more say in the schedule and the pressure the IPL puts on the cricketing calendar.
But in hindsight he should have insisted on better preparation, because the Black Caps arrived in the West Indies with several of their key batters having played very little cricket and some of the others not in great touch.
Stead put his faith instead in the experience of the side and hoped the time they had in the nets would be enough. It wasn’t enough.
He also put his faith in players who have delivered for the country in the past, which is only natural.
Players like Tim Southee got the nod over the likes of Ben Sears or Will O’Rourke.
It felt like he made some stale selection decisions when the team needed a fresh approach.
He has been loyal to his players, which has helped get the best out of them. But he has also been partially blind to their flaws, and when their standards have slipped, he has been slow to react.
T20 is vastly different from test cricket. The skills a player needs to be successful at each discipline are quite different, so why do we have the one coach for all three formats?
If you split the roles, you would end up with a specialist coach who does not have any carry-over loyalties from the other formats and who could then select the team more independently.
You also lighten the load on the coaches and they can narrow their focus.
It is something New Zealand Cricket has talked about doing before and maybe it is time to revisit that idea.
The decision to reappoint Stead last year for a further two-year term was a reflection of his success in the role.
The Black Caps were desperately unlucky not to win the 2019 ODI World Cup, and victory in the inaugural World Test Championship final in 2021 cemented his legacy.
But he is in his sixth year of his tenure and it now feels a year too long.
