The New Zealand strike bowler Tim Southee is set to make a comeback for the one-day series that starts at Dharamsala from October 16, Sunday. Earlier, Southee missed the complete Test series due to an injury; he even did not play the practise game which was played prior to the commencement of Test series. The fast bowler was later replaced with Matt Henry for the Test series.
New Zeeland selectors were hopeful of Southee being fit for the ODI series, the reason why they named him in the limited overs squad announced almost a month before. The Indian batsmen have to be wary of Southee as he is one of the great and young fast bowlers present in current time. Also, he has a rich experience of playing in IPL which adds weights to his profile.
Southee particularly knows Dhoni’s plans and tactics as both of them have shared dressing room for Chennai Super Kings. Dhoni’s trust on Southee can be judged that when CSK needed to defend just 8 runs in last over against KKR, the captain called Southee out to do the trick and it was Chennai who emerged as the winner at last as Southee accomplished the task pretty well.
Southee will lead the bowling attack whereas likes of Trent Boult and Doug Bracewell will assist him.
Southee was not just one of the causalities to New Zealand team as their off-spinner Mark Craig too got injured during the first Test match and flew back home, Jeetan Patel was called in as his replacement. Captain Kane Williamson himself fell sick during the first Test match and missed the second competition. Jimmy Neesham, the all-rounder was making a comeback in the Test squad but an injury forced him to miss the first two encounters leaving him to play jus one game in the Test series. This was an injury prone series for the Indian team as India too have a long list of players who missed Test series and few of them will also miss the One-dayers due to injury.
KL Rahul was the first one to get his name registered on the list, he missed the second and third Test match due to injury. Shikhar Dhawan was hit by a fiery delivery from Trent Boult on his hand and was the next one to join him. The five-for man of the second Test match, Bhuvneshwar Kumar too joined them and later Gautam Gambhir also injured himself by bruising his shoulder twice but he came out to bat and later went for various tests. We also heard hat Ashwin is suffering through some problems, Vijay was also not completely fit for the series is the reason why he has been asked to report at NCA instead of playing Ranji Trophy.
In short, this has a been a difficult series for both the teams with players of both the parties nursing one or the other injury but at last it was the home team which emerged as the winner at the end by nearly crushing the opposition on each and every occasion.
According to the schedule, the first ODI will be played on October 16 at Dharamsala, Delhi’s Feroz Shah Kotla will host the second encounter. Mohali, Ranchi and Vizag are the venues for the remaining encounters.
One can expect a turnaround from Kiwis in the limited-overs encounters. `