Injury shadow hangs over key men

Cricket365
March 22, 2017

Both the Black Caps and Proteas will be sweating on the fitness of key men ahead of the third and final Test between the two nations at Seddon Park in Hamilton.

New Zealand paceman Trent Boult faces a race to be fit in time for the Test which gets underway on Saturday 25 March having injured his upper leg during the first Test.

Boult returned to light training this week but word in the Black Caps camp is that he isn’t quite at 100% just yet although he has been able to bowl.

If Boult is unfit to take his place in the XI it is likely that New Zealand will opt to play two spinners and retain seamers Neil Wagner and Tim Southee. Southee missed out on the first Test to accommodate dual spin while in the second Test left-arm spinner Mitchell Santner sat out in favour of seam-bowling allrounder Colin de Grandhomme.

For the Proteas there is a grave concern as they wait on the results of a scan conducted on star wicketkeeper batsman Quinton de Kock’s right index finger.

De Kock struck a vital 91 during South Africa’s first innings to help set up a victory that the Proteas achieved within three days in Wellington.

The Proteas have promising wicketkeeper batsman Heinrich Klaasen in the squad as cover for De Kock.

Klaasen struck a mammoth 195 for the Titans against the Dolphins in Pietermaritzburg in the penultimate round of the Sunfoil Series, South Africa’s first class competition, back at the beginning of February that helped him earn a place in the squad.