He last donned the whites for New Zealand in their latest red-ball series against England at home.
New Zealand made light work of the hosts Zimbabwe in the opening Test to clinch a nine-wicket victory in Bulawayo. The second and final Test of the series begins on August 7. However, former New Zealand captain Kane Williamson is not a part of the Black Caps playing XI for the match at the same venue.
The news from the match centre is that Zimbabwe have won the toss and elected to bat first.
Zimbabwe: Brian Bennett, Nick Welch, Sean Williams, Brendan Taylor, Craig Ervine (capt), Sikandar Raza, Tafadza Tsoto, Vincent Masekesa, Blessing Muzarabani, Trevor Gwanda, Tanaka Chivanga.
New Zealand: Will Young, Devon Conway, Henry Nicholls, Rachin Ravindra, Daryl Mitchell, Tom Blundell (wk), Mitchell Santner, Jacob Duffy, Zakary Foulkes, Matt Henry, Matthew Fisher.
The 34-year-old had opted out of the Test series against Zimbabwe due to his recent contract with Middlesex for the 2025 season. This deal includes his availability to represent London Spirit in The Hundred, Middlesex in the T20 Blast, and at least five county championship matches in the second half of the season.
Previously, the batter decided to withdraw from New Zealand’s central contract for consecutive years to shift his focus to overseas matches. Notably, he has put up 9,276 runs, including 33 tons and 37 fifty-plus scores, in 105 Test matches. The inaugural ICC World Test Championship (WTC) winning skipper last donned the whites for New Zealand in their home series against England.
He recently notched up a sublime 114 for Middlesex against Northamptonshire, which included 14 boundaries and a six at the Merchant Taylors’ School Ground, Northwood.
On Tuesday, Williamson made his debut in The Hundred, leading the London Spirit side against Oval Invincibles. He had a disappointing outing with only 20 runs as his team lost by six wickets.
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The regular New Zealand skipper Tom Latham, has been ruled out of the second Test as well. The wicketkeeper-batter is yet to recover from his recent shoulder injury. The 33-year-old stayed with the team in hopes of getting fit in time for the second game but could not pass the fitness Test. The white-ball skipper, Mitchell Santner, will lead New Zealand in his absence once again.
“It’s never great when you lose your captain, who’s a world-class opening batter and a great team man, but that said we’re going to work really hard to have him available for the second Test. We’ll continue to assess and see whether a replacement player is necessary, but at this stage we are hopeful that he’ll recover in time,” head coach Rob Walter stated earlier.
Bevon Jacobs was brought in as a batting cover. They also suffered two other blows with all-rounder Nathan Smith and fast bowler Will O’Rourke getting ruled out of the second Test with injuries. Zakary Foulkes and Ben Lister were called in as replacements.
Mitchell Santner (C), Tom Blundell, Devon Conway, Jacob Duffy, Matthew Fisher, Matt Henry, Daryl Mitchell, Henry Nicholls, Zakary Foulkes, Ben Lister, Ajaz Patel, Rachin Ravindra, Will Young, Bevon Jacobs.
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