NZC chair Diana Puketapu-Lyndon writes to ICC amid ‘hostile takeover’ claims and rising leadership unrest surrounding proposed NZ20 league
New Zealand Cricket dismisses hostile takeover claims
What began as quiet rumblings over New Zealand Cricket’s domestic T20 future is showing signs of a larger crisis, as the governing body grapples with leadership questions, stakeholder concerns, and the attention from a high-stakes letter sent to the International Cricket Council (ICC).
Amid growing attention around the proposed NZ20 league, New Zealand Cricket (NZC) Chair Diana Puketapu-Lyndon sent an emphatic letter to ICC Chair Jay Shah on November 18. Co-signed by NZC’s ICC board representative Roger Twose and all six New Zealand Major Association chairs, the letter sought to challenge suggestions of a “hostile takeover” within the country’s cricketing structures.
“We are deeply concerned about the origin of any messaging that has the potential to undermine the reputation of cricket and cricket governance in New Zealand,” the letter stated.
The correspondence, viewed by both the
New Zealand Herald and
Sport Nation, pushed back against media reports — including a
Stuff article that broke the story about the NZ20 and quoted a “senior source” — that referred to the NZ20 concept as a “rebel league.” NZC’s Public Affairs Manager Richard Boock clarified the board’s position, telling the
Herald that “NZC wrote to the ICC to clarify that NZC did not view the proposed league in these terms.”
Refuting claims that players were attempting to seize control of cricket operations, the letter asserted: “The players have not taken over cricket in New Zealand.” It further emphasized that “World Cricketers Association is not ‘coming for us’. There is no hostile takeover.”
NZC also used the opportunity to defend its governance standards amid questions of perceived conflicts of interest surrounding the NZ20 proposal. “This has been the case with the NZ20 opportunity. We take governance very seriously and uphold the highest professional standards,” the letter noted.
The proposed NZ20
While New Zealand has the annual domestic Super Smash T20 tournament, it is one of the only full member ICC nations not to have a world class international T20 franchise tournament – despite the fact that its national players are sought after by the top T20 tournaments in the world.
Plans for the NZ20 – which would fill that void – have emerged in the last few months: a four-week Men’s tournament with a target launch date of early 2027, with a Women’s tournament preceding it in December in subsequent years.
The idea for the league reportedly emerged when New Zealand cricket legends and the New Zealand Cricket Players Association collectively decided that it was time for such a venture in New Zealand.
The NZ20 Establishment Committee is led by Don MacKinnon, a prominent sports administrator and lawyer who was enlisted by the players’ groups to help. MacKinnon is currently Chair of the New Zealand Sport Integrity Commission, as well as of Super Rugby club The Blues, and is also Chair of the Integrity Vetting Panel of World Athletics based in Monaco. MacKinnon previously served as a director of NZ Cricket (and Chair of its High Performance Committee).
The Establishment Committee members also include NZC board members Bill Birnie and Anna Campbell, NZ Cricket Players Association chair Ross Verry, David Howman and Brendon Gibson (two of the six heads of domestic associations), and advisers with finance and marketing backgrounds.
The current concept for the NZ20 is based on a public-private model. As described in Puketapu-Lyndon’s letter: “Ownership of the league is potentially as follows: 50% private investor, 25% Major Associations, 20% franchises and 5% NZ players.”
The letter positioned the NZ20 as a transformative opportunity, saying the league is “similar to the Caribbean Premier League and is envisioned as a boutique, city-based cricket festival in New Zealand, centred on fans, tourism, and trade, particularly in respect of strengthening a strategic partnership between India and New Zealand.”
New Zealand Sports Minister Mark Mitchell acknowledged the league’s potential, telling the
Herald: “I am aware of the [NZ20] proposal and understand that New Zealand Cricket are working with the proposer and will have more to say when the time is right.”
Alternative paths
At the heart of the crisis lie alternative options to the NZ20, both of which reportedly have the support of current New Zealand Cricket CEO Scott Weenink.
One path involves launching a New Zealand team in the Big Bash League, which was raised publicly as a possibility earlier this year in a Boston Consulting Group study presented to Cricket Australia in July. According to the results of a cricexec poll, this idea has very strong support among executives in the global cricket industry.
Another, which was officially announced last April, is New Zealand Cricket’s partnership with True North Ventures (created by two of the founders of USA’s Major League Cricket), to launch an expansion franchise in the MLC in 2027. The status of this venture is unclear following USA Cricket’s termination of its contract with MLC’s parent company, American Cricket Enterprises.
That said, New Zealand national and domestic players have expressed concerns about both of these options. According to Sport Nation, several players have spoken anonymously and asserted that the BBL push is a “reflection of a lack of investment” in domestic NZ cricket which would render the Super Smash a mere “development competition.” Multiple national team players, including Daryl Mitchell and Kyle Jamieson, have shared these views on the record with Sport Nation. The player perspective was reportedly the same in response to the April announcement about the MLC franchise.
According to Sport Nation, its sources say Weenink is opposed to the NZ20, although Weenink has not said as much publicly, and this was also denied by NZC, which stated: “NZC is running a process to consider all options for the future of T20 cricket in NZ, which includes the NZ20 option. Scott remains open minded about the various options and Deloitte has been engaged as an independent expert to manage the process. Deloitte will report back to the NZC Board and Management team with their recommendations in Q1 2026.”
While these options – for example a BBL team of 15 players and the NZ20 – are presumably mutually exclusive that is not entirely clear.
Current developments and sources of confusion
Launching the NZ20 would require alignment on numerous fronts.
- NZC would have to grant a sanction to the tournament to operate
- NZC’s agreement with the NZCPA would have to eliminate the current requirement for players to compete in the Super Smash
- The NZCPA and NZ20 would require their own bilateral agreement
The financial backing seems to be there. According to MacKinnon, speaking to Newstalk ZB: “The money is there; the interest is there. The timing is perfect.”
MacKinnon told the post the Establishment Committee have been speaking with potential investors that are both overseas-based as well as locals.
Separately, MacKinnon told ESPN Cricinfo: “the feedback from current New Zealand players is they would desperately love for this tournament to go ahead and would do everything to participate in it… We are designing this competition very much along the lines that we want the Lockie Fergusons and the Finn Allens of this world and the Kane Williamsons playing in it. So that’s the most important goal because at the moment a lot of those players aren’t playing in our Super Smash.”
However, there seems to be possible differences of opinion – and possibly more – at the senior levels of NZC.
CEO Scott Weekink did not attend the recent ICC quarterly board meetings earlier in November, joining the Chief Executives Committee remotely by Zoom instead. Some reports claimed this was due to internal leadership conflict over the NZ20 issue. Additionally, the
Herald reported that Weenink was not one of the signatories of Puketapu-Lyndon’s letter to the ICC.
However, NZC’s Boock offered an explanation of the decision for Weenink to attend remotely: “Scott and Diana agreed that Scott was better spending time in New Zealand and joining the meetings remotely, particularly given our AGM was only a few days away,” he told the
Herald.
The board has also insisted that no decision had yet been made. “No director holds a predetermined position on NZ20 or the Big Bash League,” the letter to the ICC stated, reinforcing NZC’s commitment to assessing all viable pathways.
The same letter addressed lingering concerns over transparency and independence in governance decisions. “As New Zealand is a small country where prior relationships are common, any interests are declared, and conflicts, whether perceived or real, are managed.”
In an effort to rebuild trust and clarify the board’s alignment, the letter reiterated the NZC’s support for NZ20 and rejected the “rebel league” label. “What is being worked on is not a ‘rebel league’. It is a professional T20 league which, if it goes ahead, will have the full support of all of the above parties,” the letter read.
MacKinnon expressed a similar sentiment, speaking to the Post: “To describe it as a rebel league just seems rather bizarre to me, because we can only do it with a licence from New Zealand Cricket.”
MacKinnon, separately speaking to ESPN cricinfo, acknowledged that the NZ20, and the required NZC support to launch it, was not a certainty: “We have been in constant discussions with the New Zealand Cricket Board over the last two to three months. They have been excellent to deal with. They have been very clear to us that while they’re excited by this project, they have other options they’re looking at including quite clearly whether they wish to consider trying to get a team into the Big Bash.”
Nonetheless, MacKinnon said, “At the same time we are proceeding on the basis that we believe we will get a license and we are continuing to talk to investors and making progress in that regard.”
While these various statements seem to portray alignment and buy-in to a process, they do not make clear what was the ultimate source of the allegations of a “rebel league” and a “hostile takeover” by players, and if it was simply an anonymous source, why it merited such a strong letter to the ICC in response.
According to Sport Nation, behind the scenes, tensions have been building among NZC’s leadership over the NZ20 question and the NZC board was expected to meet soon to tackle these issues.
While the outcome of that review remains to be seen, one thing is clear: New Zealand Cricket is now navigating one of the most consequential and precarious moments in its recent history. Between a possibly divided leadership, a controversial T20 overhaul, and external scrutiny from players and the public, the future of the sport’s governance in New Zealand hangs in the balance.
NZ Cricket chair Diana Puketapu-Lyndon writes to ICC rejecting ‘rebel league’ claims tied to NZ20 proposal. With CEO Scott Weenink under scrutiny and stakeholder tensions rising, the future of domestic T20 in New Zealand hangs in the balance.
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