Black Caps not guaranteed casual contracts year to year

New Zealand Cricket want Finn Allen to play all three formats and Kane Williamson to be playing for the Black Caps years to come, but they won't hesitate to drop players off casual contracts year-to-year.

More Black Caps are on casual contracts than ever before with five players agreeing to terms for the upcoming season.

The casually contracted players were required to commit to New Zealand's T20 World Cup campaign early next year and be available for a certain number of other matches.

New Zealand Cricket chief executive officer Scott Weenink said the decision to hand out so many casual contracts was determined by the upcoming schedule.

"In this circumstance there's a larger number simply because it's a T20 World Cup year so the specialist T20 players probably would not have been eligible for casual playing contracts if it wasn't a World Cup year."

However, some short format specialists, including Jimmy Neesham and Adam Milne, were not selected by New Zealand Cricket for the contracts this time.

Weenink said several factors went into assessing who could get a casual contract, "ultimately they also need to be selected for their playing ability".

"There'll likely be a world where players are contracted freelance or they're casual or they are on permanent and they swap from year to year depending on what cricket is being played that year, what World Cups are being played, whether it is a heavy Test match format during that particular year."

Weenink saw Allen as a "three format player".

"I'd love to see him playing Test cricket, also ODIs, at the moment he is choosing to prioritise domestic T20 cricket but we think by having these casual playing contracts available it means we get a little bit of the best of both worlds, so he can play for New Zealand in T20s while still pursuing franchise cricket."

Williamson was the only casually contracted player who had made himself unavailable for next month's three T20s against Australia at Mount Maunganui.

"He is still very committed to New Zealand Cricket but we're also committed to working with him on his availability. We'd love to see him continue to play for a number of years but a lot of that depends on Kane and his hunger for the game."

Weenink said the organisation would work with players on their international availability to "try and ensure that we keep players playing for New Zealand rather than being forced to retire."