New Zealand batsman Ross Taylor has been confirmed fit to take his place in the side for the first Test against England, captain Kane Williamson said on Wednesday. Taylor had been questionable for the match, which starts on Thursday, after sustaining a thigh injury that saw him skip the third and fifth matches in one-day series against England. He scored 181 not out in the fourth game in Dunedin and has not played since.<\/p>\n
He was also withdrawn from a first-class match after the limited-overs series to ensure he was fit for the first match under lights in New Zealand. \u201cHe trained well yesterday,\u201d Williamson told reporters in Auckland. \u201cThe last 10 days have been a balance of rest and recovery for someone like Ross.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s been valuable time for him. He\u2019s feeling good, good to go, that\u2019s great news for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Taylor scored 304 runs in the one-day series against England with two centuries, and 216 runs in three Test innings against West Indies in December. \u201cRoss has been playing beautifully well every time he\u2019s walked to the crease,\u201d Williamson added. \u201cJust the calmness, the confidence and it\u2019s reflected in how much success he\u2019s had this year, but probably every other year as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s batting amazingly well, he\u2019s a great guy to have in the group and is excited with his body intact to play tomorrow.\u201d Williamson also confirmed that legspinner Todd Astle would replace Mitchell Santner, who has been ruled out for nine months due to knee surgery. Recalled wicketkeeper BJ Watling, who missed the West Indies series due to a hip injury, will bat at number six in Santner\u2019s place.<\/p>\n
Williamson said the team had adapted their training sessions to get used to the pink ball for the day-night test but added that it would be more a case of the players learning how to deal with conditions during the match. The Eden Park match will be just the ninth day-night Test.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is probably a danger of overcomplicating some of the finer parts of the pink ball game,\u201d Williamson said. \u201cThey have shown different characteristics within those tests and at different stages with different conditions of the ball.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
New Zealand batsman Ross Taylor has been confirmed fit to take his place in the side for the first Test against England, captain Kane Williamson said on Wednesday. Taylor had been questionable for the match, which starts on Thursday, after sustaining a thigh injury that saw him skip the third and fifth matches in one-day […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25461,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25460"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25460\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25462,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25460\/revisions\/25462"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}