(Reuters) – New Zealand’s towering paceman Kyle Jamieson will not play in the two-test England series due to a suspected stress fracture in his back, while bowler Matt Henry will miss the first test, the New Zealand team said on Tuesday.
Henry is awaiting the birth of his first child in Christchurch and will not be available at Bay Oval on Thursday.
New Zealand have called up uncapped duo Jacob Duffy (Otago Volts) and Scott Kuggeleijn (Northern Districts) for the opener – only the second day-night test they have hosted.
England have lost their last five pink ball tests, including two heavy defeats by Australia in the 2021-22 Ashes.
Jamieson’s injury is a reocurrence of the one that ruled him out of the England test tour in June, said head coach Gary Stead.
“Since the injury in June we’ve certainly taken a cautious approach to managing his return with regular monitoring by our medical staff which has included scans,” Stead said.
“While Kyle’s not feeling any pain, the evidence is pretty clear he has a stress-fracture and so he’ll return to Christchurch today and have a CT scan on Friday before we decide on the next steps.”
Stead added that batsman Henry Nicholls and wicketkeeper Tom Blundell would link up with the rest of the squad on Tuesday.
Cyclone Gabrielle, which was bearing down on the North Island on Monday and had cut power to thousands of homes, prevented players from joining the squad for a training camp in Tauranga ahead of the series-opener in Mount Maunganui.
(Reporting by Tommy Lund in Gdansk; Editing by Ken Ferris)
