Crows: ‘Wear one and crack on’
of it. Milne has had elbow, heel and shin problems and now is set for another period of recovery.
“It’s a long summer and there’s a lot of cricket left for Adam to play,” national selector Gavin Larsen said.
Rance got his chance on New Zealand’s pre-Champions Trophy trip to Ireland in May and has been a strong domestic performer.
“We were already looking at Seth for the upcoming T20 series, so this just brings him into the squad slightly earlier than anticipated.”
Meanwhile, West Indies batsman Chris Gayle has had tests in Christchurch after sitting out the second innings of the opening ODI at Whangarei on Wednesday. West Indies officials were late last night still waiting on results of the tests.
Gayle complained of feeling unwell but management officials were unable to say anything else about his condition, in an odd press conference claiming they didn’t know what was wrong with him. you’re in a contest. More often than not, if you can get through those periods then you can handle whatever else comes at you and make a good score. Unfortunately, so far, I haven’t quite gone on to make the bigger scores that would make a better contribution for the team.”
Apart from Malan and Bairstow, Stoneman is the only England batsman to score a century on this tour, but that was in a warm-up, not a test. How is he going to break that barrier which has stopped him reaching 60 in his test career so far?
“Just repeating things for longer. You hear the greats of the game or the top coaches and it’s just repeatability. You look at Steve Smith [in Perth] and he just kept repeating what he did. Any plan we had, he worked out how he was going to counter it or absorb it. He’s shown levels of patience and good attacking instincts and he just repeats. Simple, really.”
Staying in longer would allow him to retaliate against Australia’s big three. “I find out here generally against the new ball, with a little extra pace in the wicket, the bounce and big fields — so when men are out in the deep — you’re not going to clear them.
“So when the ball is bouncing that bit more, staying on top of it is harder work. I’ll probably just try to get my head out of the way a bit better next time. Ideally when they’re coming into fourth and fifth spells, that would be the time to take them on.”
Mark Stoneman