Williamson in race to be fit to take on Proteas
Injured Black Caps captain Kane Williamson will start hitting balls this week, but remains in a race against time to be ready for next month’s South African tests.
Williamson sat out the twomatch series against Bangladesh, which was drawn 1-1, due to a troublesome left elbow injury, which has bothered him since February last year.
In a promising sign, Black Caps coach Gary Stead said Williamson would resume hitting throw downs in limited 10-minute intervals this week.
New Zealand Cricket would continue to take a cautious approach with the batting maestro, wanting to slowly ease him along with his recovery to ensure there are no setbacks.
Stead said it was too early to know whether the 31-year-old would be ready for the first test against South Africa, starting at Christchurch’s Hagley Oval on February 17.
Stead was optimistic Williamson could eventually overcome the elbow injury, rather than it being something he had to manage over the rest of his career.
‘‘I hope we can get to a stage where it will be like that, but there’s no guarantee and it’s something we’ve talked about.
‘‘Kane may just have to adjust how he goes about preparing and maybe not having quite as extensive net sessions in preparation periods. That’s still something to be determined on how the elbow does shape up.’’
If the injury did sideline Williamson for the South African tests it would be a blow to New Zealand’s top order. The retiring Ross Taylor ended his decorated 112-match test career, following Tuesday’s second test win over Bangladesh in Christchurch.
Should Williamson miss the matches, Devon Conway, who scored hundreds in both matches against Bangladesh, would likely remain at No 3 with Henry Nicholls probably sliding up to four.
Auckland’s Glenn Phillips, who was in New Zealand’s test squad against India, might be a possible middle order option, if Williamson was unavailable. Phillips played one test against Australia in January 2020, batting five, scoring 52 and a duck.
Williamson won’t play in Northern Districts’ Plunket Shield match against Auckland, starting February 4, which would be too early for him, Stead said. ‘‘There’s no way he’ll be ready for that game’’.
He could still feature against South Africa without any warm-up domestic matches to assess how he was going with the injury.
‘‘I think his record speaks for itself and he’ll know what he needs to do to be ready. We’ll try and make that [selection] call as late as possible to give him every chance of being right [for South Africa].’’ Williamson had made encouraging progress with his strengthening programme and the next stage was to see how he was tracking hitting balls. He would gradually build up his work load with the bat.
Stead praised the way New Zealand fought back in the second test against Bangladesh, following a shock eight wicket loss in Mount Maunganui, where they delivered an uncharacteristic lethargic showing.
They set the tone for victory with some excellent batting after being sent in on a green Hagley wicket on day one.
A 148-run opening stand between Tom Latham, who scored 252, the second highest score of his test career, and Will Young, and a 215-run second wicket partnership between Latham and Conway put them in a powerful position.
‘‘That just shows the temperament, the technique, and desire to put together partnerships and we talked about that as a batting group to do it for longer periods of time,’’ Stead said.
With the ball, New Zealand’s pace attack struck regularly in both innings, dismissing Bangladesh for 126 and 278.