Meanwhile, Stead also confirmed Conway had a small fracture in the joint of his left thumb, which he injured during the second T20I against Australia, and would undergo surgery that would rule him out for eight weeks. That would mean he is unlikely to be available for Chennai Super Kings in the IPL until May but he should be fit for the T20 World Cup in June.
Stead said it was disappointing to lose O’Rourke having been impressed by his performance in Wellington before he limped off with the hamstring injury in the second innings.
“He hasn’t had sort of hamstring injury in the past,” Stead said. “Disappointing for Will and disappointing for us because I thought he bowled fantastically well and for a guy that’s so young in his Test career it looks like the Australians were certainly respecting him in the way that they’re playing him. I thought his spell before he got injured was absolutely outstanding.
“He’ll be a big loss for us. Ben Sears for us as the closest I guess like for like replacement that we thought we could find. We wanted someone with some genuine pace. Ben’s done that he’s had recent international success against Australia as well which was part of the decision-making and in going with him as the replacement for Will.”
Sears, who has taken 58 first-class wickets at 27.03, bowled superbly in the two T20Is against Australia just before the Test series. He knocked over Travis Head in the second match in Auckland and took three wickets in his two appearances, troubling Australia’s batters with good pace and bounce. He trained with New Zealand on Wednesday during their nets session at St Mark’s school in Wellington ahead of the first Test. He was bowling alongside Wagner and clean bowled Daryl Mitchell with a beauty.
“We didn’t get there with it,” Stead said. “He had made his decision he was comfortable with it. We reconsidered a number of things but we thought in this case that the pace of Ben Sears and what he’s bought to to us and international cricket so far is the difference that we needed.
“Neil had a fitting send-off last night with the team. They celebrated everything he’s done, and Neil was happy with the decision of where he’s got to around that as well.”
“Yes, it is. Yeah, definitely,” Stead said. “If we knew it was going to spin, not so much the spin but more the bounce, then Santner would have played. So yeah, we got that wrong. Put our hand up around that as well. It’s not what we expected, not what we’ve seen from the Basin Reserve in the past either.”
“[It’s] good. I’ve got a lot of respect for Tim,” Stead said. “We don’t agree on all the decisions that are made but that’s healthy as well.
“There’s different ways of looking at that. It’s easy in hindsight to look back and say, oh, you didn’t get a wicket for a session, so something must be wrong. Equally, when we do take a lot of wickets you should say the same thing, geez, the bowling plans were very good. So that’s the game of cricket. It can change so quickly. I thought at times in the second innings Tim was excellent. His changes were spot on. So there’s always things to discuss between a coach and a captain and we always do that.”
