Black Caps coach Gary Stead has laughed off the scathing reaction to his break during the ODI series win over India, saying former captain Jeremy Coney doesn’t have relevance to how his team operates.
Coney savaged Stead’s break, which came after NZ had been swept 5-0 by the Indians in the T20 series.
"This is the job and this is the main part of the season, it's ridiculous this is happening at this crunch time,” Coney said in a radio interview earlier this month.
"You don't take your captain away from the helm when you are wanted most, when the ship is in deep shtook, amongst the rocks.”
"Would you call it desertion? Or would you just say it's a really bad look fellas? If I was (NZ Cricket boss) David White I would say to myself, no I'm sorry Gary, you can wait a week.
Stead laughed off Coney’s criticism when asked by media today.
“I guess everyone has a right to an opinion,” a smiling Stead said.
“What Jeremy Coney thinks about me doesn’t have relevance to the way we go about things so.”
The level of backlash from fans, as well as Coney, caught Stead by surprise.
“I was really surprised (by the backlash), NZ cricket and I have talked about this for a long time, looking after our staff and the players that we have, so we did that,” Stead said.
“I know NZ cricket are doing what we think is right for us as people, first and foremost, we did it, I was very surprised.”
Stead said he had four or five days off before returning to planning for the upcoming Test series, during which he enjoyed watching bowling coach Shane Jurgensen led the team to an ODI series sweep over India.
“It was good to see the family, I had four or five days off work, I’ve been back for a few days planning for this series,” he said.
“They’re distractions that don’t need to be there, but we need to move on. To look ahead to India Test series now.”
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