New Zealand head coach Gary Stead, on Wednesday (October 13), revealed that Kane Williamson has suffered a hamstring tear during Sunrisers Hyderabad’s (SRH) penultimate league match of the ongoing Indian Premier League (IPL 2021) in the UAE.
Williamson was left out of the SRH’s playing XI for their final match in the IPL 2021 against Mumbai Indians last week, which sparked concerns over the New Zealand skipper’s fitness ahead of the upcoming ICC T20 World Cup 2021, starting on October 17 in the UAE.
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However, Stead was quick to play down the chances of the injury hurting Williamson's involvement in New Zealand’s T20 World Cup 2021 opener against Pakistan in Sharjah on October 26, saying the skipper is nursing a “very slight hamstring twinge” but is “feeling good” and likely to be fit in some days.
Stead told New Zealand Cricket: “Kane's fine. He's just had a very, very slight hamstring twinge, but he's getting through everything at the moment, he's feeling good. They [Sunrisers Hyderabad] were out of the competition as well, so I'm not sure if that was something he had to play in.”
Notably, Williamson alongside the Black Caps’ squad members James Neesham, Adam Milne, and coach Shane Bond joined New Zealand's camp in Dubai ahead of the T20 World Cup 2021.
Kyle Jamieson will join the camp in “the next couple of days” after Royal Challengers Bangalore was eliminated from the IPL 14 alongside Tim Southee if the experienced pacer’s Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) team fails to make it to the IPL 2021 Final.
With the IPL 14 playoffs still going on in the UAE, several key members of New Zealand’s team are yet to join the national camp in Dubai, including Mitchell Santner (Chennai Super Kings) and Lockie Ferguson (Kolkata Knight Riders), and Stead is looking forward to having all his players together as soon as possible to get acclimatized to the conditions before the T20 World Cup.
(With ANI Inputs)
