Guptill: No pressure, baby

Watching Martin Guptill at McLean Park on match eve you’d think he barely had a care in the world.

Trotting around after oneyear-old daughter Harley, as wife Laura McGoldrick conducted a television interview in the Harris Stand, it showed there are far better things for top cricketers to occupy their time with than stressing about a lean series against India.

It was only a question from the media gaggle about batsmen coming to Napier to ‘‘resurrect their careers’’ that saw Guptill play something akin to a rash shot.

‘‘Is my game under question, is it,’’ he shot back, with a laugh.

Not quite, for someone with an ODI career average of 42.3, but a big score or three from the Black Caps opener in this three-match one-day series against Bangladesh, starting in Napier at 2pm today, would go a long way to easing top-order angst.

Guptill, who will partner Henry Nicholls in his 167th ODI, returns to the scene of the India series opener which began a sequence of scores of 5, 15, 13 and 14. Seamers Mohammed Shami and Bhuvneshwar Kumar were outstanding with their line and length as the New Zealand innings stuttered, then was spun out.

Then Guptill missed game five in Wellington when tweaking his back at training as the tourists sealed it 4-1. He also sat out the three T20s before being passed fit for Napier.

It meant a very un-Guptill-like run of six scores of 15 or under since his stunning 138 off 139 balls against Sri Lanka at Mount