New Zealand are determined to ensure key batter Rachin Ravindra is fit to play Australia, as he sits out the upcoming ODIs against India<\/p>\n
New Zealand star batter Rachin Ravindra has been left out of the squad for the Black Caps’ ODI series against India beginning on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Ravindra is currently recovering from a shoulder injury which saw the 26-year-old miss the five-game T20I series against the same opponent, which concluded on Sunday.<\/p>\n
The Kiwis are looking to rest Ravindra as their tour to Australia approaches. The first of four Tests between the Tasman rivals begins on December 9 – six weeks away.<\/p>\n
New Zealand coach Rob Walter said Ravindra – who is absent alongside Mark Chapman, who is recovering from a hamstring injury – would be missed in the five-game series against India, but it was necessary for the Kiwis to give their gun batter as much time as possible to recover as they prepare for Australia.<\/p>\n
“Everyone knows what an asset Mark and Rachin are to this side so it\u2019s a shame they have to miss this series,” said Walter.<\/p>\n
“With Rachin, his shoulder hasn\u2019t quite recovered to a position where he could field comfortably in white-ball cricket, so with the Test series later this month we don\u2019t want to take any undue risks.”<\/p>\n
Ravindra will be crucial to New Zealand’s hopes this summer, having fast become arguably their most important batter while averaging 47.82 across 24 Tests.<\/p>\n
The stylish left-hand middle-order batter has not yet played on Australian shores but averaged 36.25 in two Tests against the Aussies at home in 2024.<\/p>\n
New Zealand are as well-positioned as ever to come and claim a major scalp away from home against a deflated Australia.<\/p>\n
The Kiwis sit atop the World Test Championship rankings with South Africa (second) and Australia (third) in tow.<\/p>\n
Australia will play the first Test against New Zealand in Perth from December 9-13, followed by matches at the Adelaide Oval (December 17-21), MCG (26-30) and SCG (January 4-8).<\/p>\n
The series will go a long way in deciding who will feature in the World Test Championship Final which will be held at The Oval, England, in June 2027.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New Zealand are determined to ensure key batter Rachin Ravindra is fit to play Australia, as he sits…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":949546,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44,83],"class_list":["post-949545","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news","tag-text"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/949545","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=949545"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/949545\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/949546"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=949545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=949545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=949545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}