(Cricket news) The Former test captain and star batter Kane Williamson is expected to return to the Kiwis squad ahead of their opening-test against South Africa at Mount Maunganui. Williamson was withdrawn midway through the T20I series against Pakistan after suffering a slight hamstring strain.

The last 10 months has not been very good for the star batter from New Zealand. He has been prone to multiple injury problems since the opening game of IPL 2023 where he ruptured an anterior cruciate ligament while fielding in the boundary. New Zealand’s team management has taken a conservative approach when it comes to the selection of Williamson for various assignments, in order to ensure an effective workload management for him.

New Zealand head coach Gary Stead is confident Kane Williamson will be fit for the series-opening Mt. Maunganui Test. Although given the second string team that South Africa is fielding for the test series, there might have been temptations to give Kane a bit longer to recover and an extended period of rest, but the Kiwis have no intentions to take the Proteas challenge lightly.

“I’m confident he will be alright,” the Black Caps head coach said. “He’s probably got another day or two before he starts back into training and it was a minor niggle, which is a good thing. So, we didn’t want to aggravate it and didn’t see the point of aggravating it with the important series that are ahead. He’s obviously a key player and we know that and we want to make sure we’ve given him every chance of being available.”

The 2 match test series is set to begun from the 4th of Feb, with the series-opener set to be played at Mount Maunganui followed by the 2nd test at Hamilton. New Zealand have never beaten South Africa in a test series before so this would be an interesting challenge ahead of the Kiwis and probably their best chance, given the lack of experience in the South African setup

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