New Zealand captain Kane Williamson is likely to be out of action for two months with a recurring elbow injury that also kept him out of the 2nd Test against India at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai.
Williamson will miss the upcoming two-match Test series against Bangladesh, starting January 1. However, the latest update means the Kiwis will be without their regular captain in the series against Australia and South Africa. New Zealand’s white-ball tour against the Aussies will commence on January 30 while the South Africa series kickstart on February 17.
The Black Caps head coach Gary Stead has confirmed the same, however, mentioned that Kane Williamson’s return date cannot be confirmed. Speaking to nzherald.co.nz, Stead said:
“We’re trying not to put timeframes on it at this stage, I think we’ve looked to do that in the past and games have probably come a little bit quicker than what we’ve wanted.”
Gary Stead, however, hinted that from previous experience, Williamson’s comeback to could take eight to nine weeks. He added:
“Last time, if you look after the World Test Championship and then coming back before the IPL and the Twenty20 World Cup, it was about eight or nine weeks, so I expect somewhere in that timeframe again.”
“In the shorter forms of the game it’s more manageable, in Test cricket it’s tougher” – Gary Stead on Kane Williamson’s workload management
Although Kane Williamson ‘managed’ the elbow injury through the IPL and the T20 World Cup, Gary Stead explained that things are much tougher in the Test format.
“The management of Kane through the T20 games was much easier, because it’s about load on the elbow, so as soon as you enter the Test arena and you’re looking at longer periods of time training and then batting as well, that load is what tipped him over the edge. In the shorter forms of the game it’s more manageable, in Test cricket it’s tougher,” Stead concluded.