Injury concerns disrupt preparations for second Test

Southee and Herath are doubts for New Zealand and Sri Lanka respectively

WELLINGTON: Concerns over injuries to Tim Southee and Rangana Herath have disrupted the preparations of both New Zealand and Sri Lanka for the second Test in Wellington, with the Kiwis going into the match with a 1-0 lead.

Both camps have given their key bowlers until just before the Test starts today to prove their fitness.

With yet another green wicket promising plenty of bounce, the toss will be crucial with both sides looking to bowl first.

Sri Lanka have signalled they now have a plan to combat the dominance of the hosts' captain Brendon McCullum, who set up the Black Caps' eight-wicket win in the first Test in Christchurch with a 134-ball 195 in the first innings.

Wellington's Basin Reserve is one of McCullum’s favoured grounds, where he led New Zealand to victory over the West Indies by an innings and 73 runs last year, and scored 302 in a match-saving knock to draw a Test against India.

"We have a few plans [for McCullum] so we will look to try and execute that and perfect it," said Sri Lanka captain Angelo Mathews. “When a guy smashes you all over the park and gets almost a double hundred it's quite hard to set fields because he was not orthodox. We have to be patient and wait for his mistakes, which will come.”

Meanwhile, McCullum said being personally targeted by Sri Lanka was ‘a good challenge’, and was more concerned about whether strike bowler Southee would recover from an ankle knock.

 

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