Follow UsNew Zealand won’t be playing any official warm-up matches before the T20 World Cup and head coach Gary Stead said his players will rely on their experience of playing in the Indian Premier League, the Caribbean Premier League, and their recent tour of Pakistan to do well in the showpiece event in the West Indies and the USA.
Nine of the New Zealand squad members have been at the IPL, while the others recently played a T20I series in Pakistan. Devon Conway is injured but has been training with the Chennai Super Kings set-up. Daryl Mitchell, Rachin Ravindra and Mitchell Santner are also part of the CSK set-up. Glenn Phillips, Lockie Ferguson, Kane Williamson, Trent Boult, and Matt Henry are the other players currently involved in the IPL.
"West Indies is a tough place to get to for a start, so it's not easy to get everyone to Trinidad and Tobago at the same time. For us, we don't have warm-up games. There's a number of guys who have been in the IPL for the last two months and we've also recently come off the tour to Pakistan,” said Stead.
"There's a lot of experience in the group who have played in the CPL before, so we'll be leaning on those guys and making sure the trainings we get prior to the first game puts us in a position of where we want to be."
Talking about Conway’s thumb injury, Stead said, “He is tracking nicely. He's been wicketkeeping and batting in the nets on a regular basis." Finn Allen (back injury) and Tim Southee (focusing on strength and conditioning) are the other two players who haven’t played any cricket of late.
The Black Caps will start their T20 World Cup campaign against Afghanistan on June 7. In addition to these two, West Indies, Uganda, and Papua New Guinea are also part of Group C.
"Certainly looking forward to the challenge ahead and also the unknown of some of these new teams as well, the difference they might bring that we have to be really complete with our planning," said Stead.
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