NEWS
Follow UsNew Zealand have secured two consecutive victories, beating England and Netherlands in their first two encounters of the ICC Cricket World Cup 2023, without the services of two of their premium players in the form of Kane Williamson and Tim Southee. While Williamson played in the warm-up games with half fitness to test his match readiness, Southee incurred a thumb injury against Bangladesh.
But Williamson is all set to make a much-awaited return to professional cricket against Bangladesh at the MA Chidambaram Stadium, Chennai, on October 13. This will be his first official match since he picked up an ACL injury during the IPL 2023 inaugural match between Gujarat Titans and Chennai Super Kings. But Southee is not fully fit yet and will take some more time to recover.
“Firstly, Tim's progressing well but won't be playing tomorrow's game. Yeah, as for my recovery, it's been quite a journey but largely a good one that's had some really good progress,” Williamson said in the pre-match press conference in Chennai.
“And you know, I've said a number of times, really excited to be named in the World Cup squad, be sitting here now and really excited at the prospect of tomorrow, which is another big challenge for us. A new venue, new opposition, as we know, which always happens in world events. And we're looking forward to the challenge,” he added.
He had to endure a long recovery process, which for a brief period of time, made it seem like he would miss the World Cup. Even coach Gary Stead has somehow been convinced of life without Williamson, but to everyone’s surprise, the Kiwi skipper made a miraculous recovery.
Shedding light on his recovery process, Williamson said, “Recovery was or the rehab the whole sort of journey really with a series of really small steps and just trying to take small steps forward, and it certainly started with strength and range in terms of the knee and then gradually trying to improve that and control a bit - some of the pain around it as the load increases.
“We could be here all day talking about it, but I'll fast forward a little bit - and great to be here and then and get involved in those warm-up games which were really, really enjoyable and then you know during those and post that were a lot of sort of return to play fitness parts which were perhaps a little bit more related to fielding, time on feet and looking to try and execute some of those skills.
“And so, yeah, I mean each week throughout the last period of time since I've been, I guess, rehabbing has been really important and really valuable. So, it was nice to get a little bit of that time in the last week or two, and like I say, I look forward to tomorrow as a side,” Williamson added.
Chennai has always been a spin-friendly wicket, and the kind of dominance that Ravindra Jadeja and Kuldeep Yadav showed against the Australian team told a story of its own. Further, Bangladesh are well-equipped with their spinners, so Williamson understands that getting the better of them won’t be an easy proposition.
“We know it's going to be a big challenge tomorrow and as is every game, you know, we come into this tournament knowing that anybody can beat anybody. That makes a really exciting event I think and the conditions are always going to change. You go from venue to venue, and they do vary a lot and we have seen here that there's been that spin and the pitch has varied perhaps as the games moved on as well so throughout the day - but definitely, I think both teams have some good spin bowlers that no doubt will play a big part tomorrow.”
