New Zealand call country's tallest cricketer to face India in ODIs

New Zealand pacers Trent Boult, Lockie Ferguson, and Matt Henry are deemed unfit for the upcoming ODI series against India. Injuries to the frontline seamers resulted in New Zealand selectors to go for fresh blood in their pace attack as they went ahead to include their country’s tallest cricketer Kyle Jamieson.

Jamieson, 6’8’’ tall is yet to make his international debut for New Zealand and he’s in line to get a chance in the playing XI in the first ODI against visitors India. The ODI series will start from February 5 in Hamilton. Kyle Jamieson is nicknamed Killa and ‘Two-metre Peter’ for his taller stature than New Zealand’s batting coach Peter Fulton. He recently did well for New Zealand A against India A with figures of 4/49, 2/69 in the unofficial ODI series.

NZ coach Gary Stead feels India are very strong

New Zealand team head coach Gary Stead conceded that India are clear favourites going ahead in the LOIs. Stead also added that Kiws will most likely go ahead with the same batting combination that they used from the World Cup final. In the absence of frontline pacers, Tim Southee will lead the new-look pace attack against some of the best batsmen in the world.

“We’ve seen from the Twenty20 series (India) are clearly as strong as ever,” Stead said. “While the bowling line-up has a fresh look, the batting is very settled and we’ll likely have the same top eight batsmen from the World Cup finals. Tim Southee has an important job leading our new-look pace attack, which has a huge opportunity against some of the very best batsmen in the world,” Stead said as quoted by Outlook India.

The upcoming ODI series for New Zealand will be their first series since infamous defeat in the 2019 World Cup Final. Blackcaps are currently trailing the five-match T20I series by 0-3.

New Zealand ODI squad for India series:

Kane Williamson (C), Hamish Bennett, Tom Blundell, Colin de Grandhomme, Martin Guptill, Kyle Jamieson, Scott Kuggeleijn, Tom Latham, Jimmy Neesham, Henry Nicholls, Mitchell Santner, Ish Sodhi (1st ODI), Tim Southee, Ross Taylor.