Softball New Zealand said in a statement to
Stuff that Hayes – a world series gold medallist in 2013 and 2017 – “along with several others, was not picked in the current squad because he didn t meet the standards expected of the players on and off the diamond’’. We are no longer the world champions, so we have had to make changes, improve our standards, set higher expectations and pick players who meet those expectations, Black Sox coach Mark Sorenson said.
Softball NZ/Facebook
Black Sox infielder Jerome Raemaki, pictured at the Intercontinental Cup softball tournament in Prague in 2018, is one of four players dropped for failing a fitness test in 2021.