Thilan Samaraweera appointed New Zealand's batting coach ahead of Bangladesh and Pakistan tours

Former Sri Lanka batter Thilan Samaraweera has been named in the coaching department for New Zealand ahead of their limited-overs tours to Bangladesh and Pakistan respectively. Known to be a gritty customer with the bat in hand, Samaraweera would always help Sri Lanka rescue from a precarious position. Apart from that, the former right-hand batter was also known to be a perfect team man in his playing days.

New Zealand’s cricketing calendar is set to be busy ahead of the ICC T20 World Cup 2021. And for that very reason, the Blackcaps are trying to manage the workloads of players and the support staff. New Zealand Cricket (NZC) have also named separate squads for the three series, which includes a series versus India, after the culmination of the T20 World Cup.

Daily News reported the news of Samaraweera being appointed the batting coach and he will get a chance to work with the New Zealand players on their two sub-continent tours to Bangladesh and New Zealand. First up the Kiwis will face the Bangladeshi Tigers from September 01- 10 in a five-match T20I series. Later, they will travel to Pakistan after 18 years and play three ODIs and five T20Is which begins on September 17.

Top eight New Zealand players set to miss the Pakistan series

With the second half of the 14th edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) set to begin from September 19, the top eight New Zealand players won’t be part of the eight white-ball matches against Pakistan. Players like Kane Williamson, Trent Boult, Kyle Jamieson, Tim Seifert, Mitchell Santner, and James Neesham won’t be available for the series.

While Williamson is set to lead Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH), Boult will be the leader of the pace attack for Mumbai Indians in the UAE leg of the IPL. The decision of the top eight players missing the Pakistan tour has not gone down too well with former Pakistan captain Salman Butt who feels this is a bad trend of players’ option to play IPL rather than international cricket.

“The current trend is that players are opting for IPL and not international cricket. That’s actually a very bad trend. Pakistan is only getting targeted always. Pakistan should convincingly defeat New Zealand so that their board will get to know the importance of top players’ absence in the squad,” Butt said.