New Zealand suffers a major blow ahead of the three match test series against India starting from 22nd September as one of the premier strike bowler Tim Southee has been ruled of the test series.
He suffered the ankle injury during the training session and will return back to New Zealand to recover and get enough time to be ready for the five match ODI series starting from 16th October in Dharamshala.
“Tim has been working hard in preparation for this tour, so he’s understandably very disappointed to be ruled out of all three Tests,” said New Zealand coach Mike Hesson. “The focus now is for Tim to give his ankle 7-10 days rest, before slowly building his bowling loads back up ahead of the ODI series.”
With the loss of Tim Southee, now the charge will lie in the hands of Trent Boult who will lead the bowling attack. Tim Southee has taken 177 in 52 wickets while Trent Boult has played 43 test matches.
Tim Southee will be replaced by Matt Henry. Henry has played only four test matches. He played his debut test against England in May 2015. With this tough tour to India, Matt Henry needs to combine well and give troubles to Indian batting line up.
The first test match will be played at Kanpur from 22nd September, The second and third test will be played in Kolkata and Indore respectively to end the test match series.