New Zealand suffered two big blows before the third and final Test of the series against England as Matt Henry and Glenn Phillips were ruled out due to respective injuries. Henry is missing the third game due to a muscle strain. Phillips has been ruled out due to side pain. Mitchell Santner made his return to the playing XI along with Ben Sears and Blair Tickner. Henry was NZ’s star performer in the second Test at the Kennington Oval in London. The right-arm pacer took a five-fer as NZ bowled out England for 291 in their first innings.
Henry followed up with a six-fer in England’s second innings as they were bowled out for 209 in the chase to the target of 463. Courtesy of his heroics, Henry became the first NZ bowler in 36 years to become the top-placed bowler in the ICC rankings. Overall, he became the second Kiwi bowler to do so.
While NZ were rocked by injuries, England were boosted by Ben Stokes and Gus Atkinson’s returns. Both the players weren’t included in the squad for the second Test in the aftermath of the nightclub incident that took place after the second game.
New Zealand opts to bat
New Zealand won the toss and opted to bat first in the series decider. Devon Conway and Henry Nicholls opened the innings for the Kiwis in the must-win fixture. The series is leveled at 1-1..
“We are going to have a bat. It looks like a reasonably dry surface, so hopefully we can make use of it first up. (Talk us through the changes) Yeah, obviously a bit of a tale of changes throughout the series, but unfortunately Glenn Phillips and Matt Henry have been ruled out with some niggles, so Mitch Santner comes back in, Ben Sears and Blair Tickner come in for Kyle Jamieson, who’s sort of been rested through more workload,” NZ captain Tom. Latham said at the toss.
Here are playing XIs of both teams
England: Ben Stokes (Captain), Ben Duckett, Emilio Gay, Jacob Bethell, Joe Root, Harry Brook, Jamie Smith, Gus Atkinson, Jofra Archer, Josh Tongue, Shoaib Bashir
New Zealand: Tom Latham (Captain), Devon Conway, Henry Nicholls, Rachin Ravindra, Daryl Mitchell, Tom Blundell, Mitchell Santner, Nathan Smith, Blair Tickner, Ben Sears, William O’Rourke
