Hamstring injury causes Martin Guptill to be ruled out of Bangladesh T20Is

New Zealand opening batsman Martin Guptill has been forced to miss the upcoming three-match T20 International series against Bangladesh at home after suffering a hamstring injury during the third and final ODI at Saxons Oval, Nelson.

The 33 year Neil Broom, who made his ODI comeback after a 6 years hiatus, has reaped the rewards for the scintillating performances in the recently concluded ODI series and been named as the replacement. Guptill is expected to be out of action for 2-4 weeks.

The opener hurt his left hamstring on the first ball of the third over when he went in for a quick single. But decided to continue only to lay down in pain two balls later as the physio rushed in to attend him. Later, he decided to walk back and had to retire hurt after that and didn’t come out again after the fall of Broom’s wicket.

His departure left New Zealand two men down with the scoreboard reading 16 runs only. Opener Tom Latham had already fallen LBW to Mustafizur Rahman. The hosts, however, faced no problems while chasing the modest 237 runs target and won the match by a comfortable margin of eight wickets with Kane Williamson and Broom guiding the team past the finishing line with a 179-run association.

Broom was in fine touch in the ODI series with the bat. After scoring 22 in the first game, he slammed his maiden ODI ton in the second – an unbeaten 109 – before ending the series with a 97.

New Zealand have already decided to manage the workload of their pacers and rested Trent Boult for the final ODI. While he will be a part of the T20I squad, the selectors have decided to rest Tim Southee for the series.

Squad for T20Is: Kane Williamson (c), Corey Anderson, Trent Boult, Tom Bruce, Colin de Grandhomme, Lockie Ferguson, Matt Henry, Colin Munro, Jimmy Neesham, Luke Ronchi, Mitchell Santner, Ish Sodhi, Ben Wheeler, Neil Broom