With New Zealand set to play several matches in their home summer, the availability of veteran batter Kane Williamson is yet to be locked in. It is worth noting that Williamson is on a casual contract with New Zealand, and he made himself unavailable for the upcoming three-game T20I series against Australia.
Notably, Williamson also missed the Zimbabwe series to play county cricket and The Hundred. For their next assignments, the Black Caps will be taking on England in T20Is and ODIs before an all-format visit by the West Indies in November, and speaking of Williamson’s availability, New Zealand’s head coach Rob Walter took centre stage and reflected on the same.
"Kane, we're still in conversations as to what the summer is going to look like. He will play, no doubt about that. Just what and where is still in discussion,” Walter was quoted as saying by ESPNcricinfo.
"I think the reality is we're dealing with all the guys on casual contracts, actually in different positions from a playing point of view. Kane is one of those and he deserves the opportunity to sit and talk about what the rest of his year will look like. But I keep coming back to the most important thing, [which] is that he wants to play for his country, and so nutting out exactly what that looks like can take an extra week or two, but surely, he deserves that,” he added.
Walter highlighted the importance of team culture
With the T20 World Cup rapidly approaching, Rob Walter talked about how team culture is more important than fielding a fully strengthened squad for the tournament.
"I think we don't live in an ideal world and so that's part and parcel of it, I've been part of a World Cup campaign [with South Africa] where the team assembled at its full strength three days before our first game and that team managed to make a final,” Walter said.