a four-test series<\/a> in Australia across December and January, before a return to Aotearoa to face Sri Lanka in February. <\/p>\n\u201cThere\u2019s obviously a period of time before the Indian tests and we\u2019ll just reassess as we go,\u201d Walter said. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe loves the test format and he loves Black Caps cricket. So I know that there\u2019s a hunger to be involved. It\u2019s just to what extent that remains to be seen.\u201d <\/p>\n
Playing those tests is something Williamson will likely want to be involved in, as he closes in on a huge milestone in the five-day format. <\/p>\n
He is currently fourth on the all-time list for New Zealand for tests with 108, behind Ross Taylor (112), Daniel Vettori and Stephen Fleming (111). <\/p>\n
He\u2019s also 539 runs shy of the 10,000 test runs mark. <\/p>\n
While they are significant milestones, Walter knows numbers are not everything for Williamson. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s got there by sort of selflessly dedicating himself to the team and to the team\u2019s performance,\u201d Walter said. <\/p>\n
\u201cIf it started to become about that, it would really feel out of place for him and that he\u2019d been now focusing on a personal milestone, which has never been Kane\u2019s thing really. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe is where he is as a byproduct of his excellence really and the hard work and the dedication that he\u2019s put into one his craft, but also to the team doing well. <\/p>\n
\u201cI know every New Zealand cricket lover would love him to get there and there\u2019s probably no one more deserving, but I don\u2019t think it\u2019s a motivating factor for him.\u201d <\/p>\n
The Black Caps will play three ODIs and three T20 matches against Bangladesh in April and May, before playing a test against Ireland ahead of the England series.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cAs we stand, that\u2019s definitely the plan,\u201d Walter said. \u201cKane has obviously been about taking things series by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":365370,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[9092,44485,7022,42574,1320,4611,1634,9435,78,191975,26502,111,139,69,10538,77461,1963,213,2737,6271,765,191976,61,37116,1533,72725],"class_list":{"0":"post-365369","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-against","9":"tag-batter","10":"tag-black","11":"tag-caps","12":"tag-coach","13":"tag-confident","14":"tag-england","15":"tag-expects","16":"tag-in","17":"tag-junes","18":"tag-kane","19":"tag-new-zealand","20":"tag-newzealand","21":"tag-nz","22":"tag-play","23":"tag-rob","24":"tag-series","25":"tag-sports","26":"tag-star","27":"tag-suit","28":"tag-test","29":"tag-threetest","30":"tag-to","31":"tag-walter","32":"tag-will","33":"tag-williamson"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365369","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=365369"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365369\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/365370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=365369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=365369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=365369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}