Former New Zealand batsman, Peter Fulton has stepped down as the New Zealand team’s batting Cricket coach in order to become the head coach of the Canterbury Men’s team.
Fulton, who had replaced Craig McMillan, took up the job with New Zealand after the 2019 World Cup last year. His assignments with the team included a tour of Sri Lanka and Australia and a visit by England last year before a home series against India in early 2020.
While calling it an “honour to get back involved with the national team”, Fulton looked forward to pursuing his ambitions to be a head coach.
Fulton played 23 Tests, 49 One Day Internationals and 12 Twenty/20 Internationals between 2004 and 2014 and will start his role with Canterbury from 1st August.
Before relinquishing his post, Fulton will attend a camp when the New Zealand players assemble on 13th July in Lincoln after the lockdown.
Having used both Kookaburra and Dukes balls in the Sheffield Shield competition over the last four years, Cricket Australia have reverted to the traditional model of using only the Kookaburra for the upcoming season.
Repeated failures in their attempt to capture the Ashes in England where the Dukes are used, prompted Cricket Australia to start using Dukes in the domestic games from the 2016-17 season.
With Australia finally retaining the Ashes last year in England and with a view to examine the performances of players consistently, Cricket Australia have ditched the Dukes experiment.
“We do, however, feel that reverting to one ball for 2020-21 will provide the consistent examination of our players over a full season that CA and the States are presently seeking. The Kookaburra is the ball used for international cricket in Australia and many parts of the world and we see benefits this season of maximising our use of it.”
Apart from that, CA also noted the decline in the performances of the spinners especially in the games where the Dukes were used. Roach is now hopeful of the spinners playing a bigger role with the Kookaburra balls in the upcoming season while confirming that the Dukes will make its way back into Australian cricket at some stage in the future.
