New Zealand Name Squads To Tour Zimbabwe

New Zealand Name Squads To Tour Zimbabwe

Ross Taylor will captain New Zealand for the first time - barring injury - when they play Zimbabwe in November

©REUTERS / Action Images

New Zealand have named their squads to tour Zimbabwe next month for a series of Tests, One-Day Internationals and Twenty20 Internationals.

New Zealand Cricket (NZC) have named a 15-man squad for the ODIs and T20Is which will be played in October ahead of the one-off Test match, which begins on 1st November.

The squad for the limited overs matches features 11 of the players that exited the World Cup at the semi-final stage as well as BJ Watling, Doug Bracewell, Rob Nicol and Graeme Aldridge - the latter three players all uncapped.

Doug Bracewell is also included in the Test squad for the first time along with Dean Brownlie with Kyle Mills, Jeetan Patel and Watling returning to the squad.

Mills has been absent from the Test team since 2009 while Watling and Patel toured India in 2010.

"Rob Nicol has earned his place after having good domestic performances last season," New Zealand coach John Wright said.

"We think that the wickets in Zimbabwe it is important to have good spin options and he provides us with extra cover in the batting.

"The retirement of Scott Styris has given both Rob and James Franklin the opportunity to work for that space.

"Doug Bracewell did very well at the Emerging Player Tournament so that lead to his selection in both tour parties.

"Like Bracewell, Dean Brownlie had a good EPT and strong domestic form so has earned his place.  He’s a player we think a fair bit of.

"Watling comes back to serve in both squads as batting cover and also as wicket-keeping cover for the ODIs and Twenty20s.

"Jeetan is further down the line than his competitors in terms of experience and we’ve been encouraged by what we’ve seen at the camp.

"This is a good opportunity for Kyle Mills.  He is keen to play the five day form of the game so he’ll take his chance with the other four bowlers.  He has done a lot of training this winter and is keen to play."

The team are hopeful that Tim Southee will recover from the knee injury that ruled him out of the Champions League in time for the Test match while Daniel Flynn was unavailable due to a hip injury.

New Zealand ODI/T20I squad: Ross Taylor (captain), Graeme Aldridge, Doug Bracewell, James Franklin, Martin Guptill, Brendon McCullum, Nathan McCullum, Andy McKay, Kyle Mills, Rob Nicol, Jacob Oram, Jesse Ryder, BJ Watling, Kane Williamson, Luke Woodcock

New Zealand Test squad: Ross Taylor (captain), Doug Bracewell, Dean Brownlie, Martin Guptill, Jesse Ryder, Chris Martin, Brendon McCullum, Andy McKay, Kyle Mills, Jeetan Patel, Tim Southee, Daniel Vettori, BJ Watling, Kane Williamson, Reece Young

Tour Schedule

© Cricket World 2011