Follow UsOn one hand, Kane Williamson is still recovering from the ACL injury he had sustained during the opening encounter of the Indian Premier League 2023 and hasn’t played a game of cricket yet in the last six months. But New Zealand suffered another blow ahead of their ICC World Cup 2023 campaign when pace spearhead Tim Southee suffered an injury during the fourth ODI against England nearly two weeks back.
Southee had dislocated and fractured his thumb and is recovering from the same, and as a precaution, New Zealand Cricket have brought in Kyle Jamieson as a cover. However, coach Gary Stead is confident that the pacer will be fit to return to the Kiwi side by the tournament's second game.
"Tim's seen a hand specialist yesterday, and the key thing for him is really making sure the wound heals. We're still really hopeful that he'll be available early on in the tournament for selection," Stead said. "He's had five pins put in his thumb... He's comfortable, and he'll be ready somewhere around that first or second game.
"So, it's all gone really well. He's had a check-in with the surgeon and a hand therapist. They think there might be a little bit of pain still, but he's a tough and resilient character. So we are fortunate to have him with our squad still. Tim hasn't been ruled out of the tournament. The rules state that you can only get 15 players in your squad, so we've kept Kyle there as cover right now. And that's just to make sure that if another bowler goes down right before the first game - or if Tim doesn't heal as quickly. If there's some sort of setback, then we have someone there as a ready replacement."
Further, Kane Williamson stated that he needs to have full intensity during two warm-up games ahead of the ICC World Cup mega event for a smooth return to professional cricket. Initially, it was touted that Williamson wouldn’t be able to take any part in the World Cup due to the severity of the injury, but his recovery is extremely impressive.
"It's [about] working through those warm-up games to get as much out of it as I can - personally and as a team - without sort of bothering too much. There is a strong desire to basically be involved in those as much as I can; we've got two of them before our first competition game. And basically, it's just wanting to progress what I am doing now - the running, the fielding, and also time in the middle with the bat,” Williamson said ahead of his departure from New Zealand.
"The load is going to keep increasing, so there is a little bit of an unknown. But it has felt pretty good really in the last few weeks, [I'm] hoping it continues to feel like that. But we're definitely looking to touch on more stuff, [and] introducing myself into the game mode, which is something which we haven't had the opportunity to do."