Wellington [New Zealand], October 6 : After the completion of the T20I series against Australia, New Zealand head coach Rob Walter confirmed that the former skipper Kane Williamson will be available for the upcoming home summer for the Blackcaps.
Williamson made himself unavailable for the three-match T20I series against Australia, where the Men in Yellow clinched the series 2-0. He also missed the tour of Zimbabwe to play county cricket and the Hundred.
According to ESPNcricinfo, speaking on Williamson's availability, Walter told reporters after the Australia series, "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."
"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 nothing out exactly what that looks like can take an extra week or two, but surely, he deserves that," he added.
Further talking on the recently concluded T20I series against the Mitchell Marsh-led side, Walter spoke about the Kiwis' performance in the two-match series that they played.
"There are little bits [of positives] here and there, but, to be fair, we were a little bit off our best game and when you do that against [Australia], who've won 25 of their last 30 T20 internationals, you're going to find yourself on the wrong end of the result. Some of the areas that we weren't competitive in are actually quite easy fixes, [they] just require a little bit of extra time on our part...like any loss there'll be some positives most of the time and then some stuff that you walk away with and understanding that you have to do better as we move forward," the 50-year-old continued as per ESPNcricinfo.
"With England arriving, you've got a team that's going to play very similar to how Australia played in the series. So again, we get to check out if we actually have improved in the areas that we've identified and spoken about," the head coach concluded.