Kane Williamson in action during game two of the five match international Twenty20 series against Pakistan. Photo: Photosport
Black Caps sweat on Williamson scan
Black Caps skipper Kane Williamson is set to miss the remainder of the T20 series against Pakistan after suffering a hamstring injury in the side's latest win.
Williamson retired hurt on 26 and has returned home to Tauranga where he is awaiting the results of a scan.
The Black Caps won the match by 21 runs and have a 2-nil lead in the five match series heading into game three in Dunedin on Wednesday.
Williamson was due to skip that match anyway and due to return for games four and five but is now unlikely to be seen in the rest of the Pakistan series.
Black Caps coach Gary Stead confirmed batter Will Young has joined the squad as injury cover.
"With the test matches so close... and a higher priority, it's likely we'll try and make sure that he's right for that."
New Zealand have home tests against South Africa and Australia coming up over the next couple of months.
Stead said the injury is on the same leg which Williamson had operated on after an ACL injury at the IPL in April last year.
"The knee injury was clearly a really serious thing that can take anything from 12 to 18 months to come completely right.
"He's done remarkably well to to get back and do what he has done. Kane is a prodigious trainer so probably even by his standards, he hasn't quite done as much as what he would have liked, but he's still showing the results which is pretty amazing in itself."
Stead said the extent of the injury should be revealed later today while Tim Seifert will get his opportunity in Williamson absence.
Meanwhile, Stead praised the performance of his swashbuckling opener Finn Allen, who managed to convert one of his many blistering starts into a substantial score of 74 as the Black Caps posted 194/8 at Seddon Park.
Finn Allen admires his work. Photo: Photosport
"It's tough when you're asking him to go out and play a really dynamic type of game. He obviously has the power to hurt any team in the world and let's not forget, this Pakistan side is one of the best bowling sides that that we will come across as well."
Stead said he wants Allen to make the most of it when it is his day.
"It's a fine line between asking someone to go out and play a high risk game and and then the opposite side of it as well. You're going to expect a few failures from time to time but the way he plays, he puts all teams on notice from ball one."
He said Allen's fireworks nicely complement the more subdued styles of Williamson and Devon Conway at the top of the order.
"Devon and Kane at play a slightly different way of going about it, but the strike rate that Finn can can generate is very, very good."
Another player coming of age this summer is seamer Ben Sears, who despite being expensive at times, has claimed four wickets in the opening T20's including Pakistan's top batter Babar Azam twice.
"He went for about 30 runs and 13 in his first over but he's got Babar out twice. There are many bowlers in the world who would like to have that," said Stead
"I've really liked the pace he's bowled at and the variations and the way he's been smart about using them."
The only blight on the two dominant performances by the Black Caps have been a number of dropped catches in the field.
"We pride ourselves on our fielding, we know we don't take every catch and it's not through lack of effort but it's something you want to make sure that as a team that we're at the very top of where we can be so when we get those half chances we do we do expect to take some of them."
Tim Southee, Ben Sears and Daryl Mitchell celebrate the wicket of Iftikhar Ahmed of Pakistan. Photo: Photosport
