Ryder takes an "indefinite" break from cricket

Link

What is it about these tranquil, snoozy (bar the occasional earthquake) isles that makes their sportsmen so prone to go off the rails?

Has Ryder ever been on the rails?

He's hit them occasionally, but that was probably by mistake.

Is what he did this time even that bad? Unprovoked, a guy in a bar suddenly launches into a verbal tirade against him and Doug Bracewell, they respond with a few choice words of their own, before walking away.

Umm, surely 99% of people would do the same thing? As far as I know, there is no evidence to suggest that Ryder was intoxicated. He's been a c*nt in the past, but this time he seems to be a victim of his reputation, rather than the punishment handed out to him actually fitting the crime.

The punishment seems too harsh - but it seems he is in some trouble. Hope he can overcome it, because in spite of all his flaws he could still contribute much to Kiwi cricket if he can get his act together.

It could be so much worse. He could have got into a fight with numerous injuries inflicted and sustained. As far as I know, the worst thing that has happened to him was severed tendons.....from trying to break into a locked toilet. Did the toilet press charges?

Would have made more sense if he'd tried to break out of a locked toilet...

Henry wrote:Did the toilet press charges?

It tried to, but the police just thought it was taking the piss.

Nice beams.

Seriously though, what a shame. As Trev said, I'm sure we'd have all done the same thing. I don't think it's fair that the punishment has been skewed, either.

Big Jessie is an entertaining player anyway, in a country that has never had massive resources and depth available so a shame really if his career fizzles out due to off the field problems.

Aye, he's probably top 3 in terms of talent. I was actually disappointed how he went against the Aussies, thought he was better than that.

Seemed to just throw his bat at everything against Aus, despite their being situations where grafting and rebuilding was needed. Perhaps a tad over-confident after that blistering double hundred he made in the warm up game.

Still, he's unlucky. 30 years ago he simply would have been labelled a larger than life, but much loved character. These days, modern international cricketers must get worried to even go to bars, for fear of some smart arse trying to provoke them, and you can tell, because the majority of cricketers these days are boring robots.

I suppose Snoozian cricket in recent times has been built on players overachieving based on their level of talent. Mark Richardson - tailender turned top order blocker supreme. Vettori - turned himself into a genuine all-rounder. Chris Martin - no great pace and a strange delivery stride, but seemingly just gets better with age.

With that kind of culture of getting as much as possible out of limited raw materials it's perhaps understandable they don't have time for those who waste their talent.

Aye, it's all a bit too much. There shouldn't be a definitive rule... some players are obviously better at coping with the after effects of alcohol than others. It shouldn't be seen as a definite path to underperformance.

I always thought Stephen Fleming was a bit of an underachiever. He should have averaged 45 and scored a lot more hundreds with his talent.