WELLINGTON: New Zealand cricketer Trent Boult is already targeting next month’s Test series against the West Indies but he is more than ready to play the Twenty20 matches that start a day after he is due to be released from a biosecure facility in Christchurch.
Boult only arrived back in New Zealand on Thursday alongside several team-mates and West Indies players who had been at the Indian Premier League tournament in the United Arab Emirates and placed in mandatory 14-day isolation.
All of the players will be tested for the novel coronavirus at least three times before they are scheduled to be released on November 26, one day before the opening Twenty20 match in Auckland.
“I don’t even know what time we get out,” the left-arm quick told reporters on a conference call on Friday. “I know that we finish up here the day before it (the T20 series) starts. “I’m probably just targeting the test matches as usual.
“I’ve got to make sure that I’m ready for them. If I’m involved in the T20s earlier as well then that will be exciting too.” The coronavirus pandemic forced the cancellation of New Zealand’s overseas tours this year and Boult acknowledged it had been hard for him not to play any cricket at all for five months before he went to the IPL.
Describing himself as someone who “can’t sit still”, he was itching to begin training again at New Zealand Cricket’s high performance centre early next week, pending a negative result from his first COVID-19 test.
Despite a congested playing schedule during the IPL, where he helped the Mumbai Indians to their fifth title, Boult felt he still had some conditioning work to do ahead of the test series.
“While the workloads probably aren’t quite there for test match cricket, I definitely feel better off having tasted some cricket,” he said. “I just need to progress it as quickly as I can.” — Reuters
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