{"id":507788,"date":"2026-02-27T15:27:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T15:27:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/507788\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T15:27:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T15:27:10","slug":"henry-to-return-home-after-england-game-for-birth-of-his-child","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/507788\/","title":{"rendered":"Henry to return home after England game for birth of his child"},"content":{"rendered":"

New Zealand<\/a> fast bowler Matt Henry<\/a> has been granted paternity leave and will return home from the men’s T20 World Cup 2026<\/a> for the birth of his second child following his team’s Super Eight fixture against England at the Khettarama in Colombo<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“Firstly, we’re all very excited for Matt and Holly on the arrival of their second child,” New Zealand coach Rob Walter<\/a> said in a statement. “It’s a very significant moment for their family and we’re wishing them all the best.”<\/p>\n

Walter is hopeful of Henry returning to the side, subject to New Zealand qualifying for the semi-finals. “There’s a lot of water to go under the bridge but we’re hopeful that the stars align for the team and for Matt and that we’ll see him back competing in the final phases of the competition.”<\/p>\n

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New Zealand will put an end to all qualification permutations<\/a> if they beat England on Friday. Not only will they qualify, but they will also top the group with five points, and will hence play the second-placed team from Group 1 in the semi-finals. That result will also ensure that both semi-finals will be hosted in India.<\/p>\n

Henry is New Zealand’s joint-highest wicket-taker in this T20 World Cup, with six strikes in five innings at an economy rate of 7.38.<\/p>\n

Earlier during the group stage, Lockie Ferguson had been granted paternity leave<\/a> and missed the game against Canada in Chennai. He has rejoined the squad since and turned up for New Zealand against Sri Lanka in the Super Eight on February 25.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New Zealand fast bowler Matt Henry has been granted paternity leave and will return home from the men’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":507789,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,85],"class_list":["post-507788","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cricket","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507788","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=507788"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507788\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/507789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=507788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=507788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=507788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}