“Like all Test tours and series we have reviews at the end of it and Tim and I had a conversation around it, then he made the decision to stand down,” Stead said. “He thought it was in the best interests of the team. I supported his decision around that.

“It allows different players to be considered in roles and as a selector and coach you are always trying to put what you think is the very best team out there. With Tim as captain, he was the guy who was starting for us and leading that team and think we were always looking at the options that were best for the team going forward.”

“They’ve both scored fifties so that’s always the balance that possibly in New Zealand you think about more, especially if it’s going to be real seamer-friendly,” Stead said. “Think here the first thing you want to do is make sure you’ve got the bowlers you think can take 20 wickets.”

“From my conversations with Tim he recognised he hasn’t been at his best but there’s certainly no desire to not get back there,” Stead said. “He’s working hard in the background, he’s doing everything he can and trying to rediscover what that little thing he feels is missing is.

“There’s a couple of little technical points Tim’s working on. He’s working with [Jacob] Oram around them. We’ve looked back at quite a bit of video from previous years and times he’s played in India and had success. It’s just trying to rediscover that and find a little bit, I guess you could call it snap back into his action.”

India will be without Mohammed Shami but Stead noted the depth of talent India were able to call on. “If they have an injury it doesn’t seem to effect them like other teams. There’s someone else who can come in who is equally adept,” he said. “They have the mass of numbers they can call but they are also very skilful and are an experienced team with a lot of Test caps. They play a brand of cricket that makes it very difficult for you over here but that’s the challenge that’s ahead of us.”