Kane Williamson confirms he will play WC clash against Bangladesh

New Zealand will take on Bangladesh in their ICC Cricket World Cup match at Chennai on Friday. While New Zealand has registered two wins in two games so far, Bangladesh has one win and one loss in the tournament.

On his match status and pacer Tim Southee's fitness, Williamson said that he will play and his recovery from an injury sustained during Indian Premier League (IPL) 2023 has been "quite a journey but largely a good one". He also said that Southee would not feature in the match against Bangladesh.

"Yeah (on if he will play or not). Well, Tim's progressing well, but would not be playing tomorrow's game. Yeah, as for my recovery, it has been quite a journey but largely a good one that has had some really good progress and you know I have said a number of times, really excited to be named in the World Cup squad, be sitting here now and really excited at the prospect of tomorrow, which is another big challenge for us. A new venue, new opposition, as we know, which always happens in world events. And we are looking forward to the challenge," said Williamson in the pre-match press conference.

On the success of NZ's 'All Blacks' rugby team, which has won three rugby World Cups and how it inspires the cricket team which is yet to win the 50-over World Cup, Williamson said that the entire squad loves the All Blacks side and is passionate about their success.

"I mean, yeah, we love the All Blacks, you know coming from New Zealand obviously Rugby is our number one game and so I think everybody in the squad is pretty passionate about Rugby and following their journey at the moment at the World Cup and the success that they have had," said Williamson.

He also said that though his side has had some really enjoyable times as of late, they will have to start over once again since they are at a different venue, offering a different challenge.

"For us, yeah, I mean we have had some really enjoyable times recently and got pretty close, but you still have to start again. And there has been some good performances so far. We come to another venue where challenges could be a little bit different and so it is important to play what is in front of us and keep focusing on what gives us the best chances," he said.

Talking about his recovery, Williamson said that his journey towards recovery involved "a series of small steps" and it started with exercises for strength and range of his knee. He also said that warm-up matches were really enjoyable.

"Yeah, yeah the recovery was or the rehab the whole sort of journey really with a series of really small steps and just trying to take small steps forward and it certainly started with strength and range in terms of the knee and then gradually trying to improve that and control a bit - some of the pain around it as the load increases and we could be here all day talking about it, but I will fast forward a little bit - and great to be here and then and get involved in those warm-up games which were really, really enjoyable and then you know during those and post that were a lot of sort of return to play fitness parts which were perhaps a little bit more related to fielding, time on feet and looking to try and execute some of those skills. And so, yeah, I mean each week throughout the last period of time since I have been, I guess, rehabbing has been really important and really valuable. So, it was nice to get a little bit of that time in the last week or two and like I say, I look forward to tomorrow as a side," said Williamson.

Williamson said that he was fortunate to have a good team of people around him and to not have a lot of setbacks during his time away from the game.

On being asked if the experience of managing his elbow in Dubai during the ICC T20 World Cup 2021 helped him manage his knee this time around. he said, "Yeah, I mean quite, yeah quite different injuries but yeah, I suppose speaking to this one you know there were lots of quite clear steps along the way that you were trying to tick off different milestones in terms of returning to the next phases and those sorts of things. So quite different, a lot of data around it, mainly from other sports that were relied on and different strength numbers and heights and jumping and just heaps and heaps of different bits. So yeah, quite different but just great to be sitting here now and looking forward to the challenges tomorrow."

New Zealand squad: Kane Williamson (c), Trent Boult, Mark Chapman, Devon Conway, Lockie Ferguson, Matt Henry, Tom Latham, Daryl Mitchell, Jimmy Neesham, Glenn Phillips, Rachin Ravindra, Mitch Santner, Ish Sodhi, Tim Southee, Will Young.

Bangladesh squad: Shakib Al Hasan (c), Litton Kumer Das, Tanzid Hasan Tamim, Najmul Hossain Shanto (vc), Tawhid Hridoy, Mushfiqur Rahim, Mahmudullah Riyad, Mehidy Hasan Miraz, Nasum Ahmed, Shak Mahedi Hasan, Taskin Ahmed, Mustafizur Rahman, Hasan Mahmud, Shoriful Islam, Tanzim Hasan Sakib. (ANI)