New Zealand skipper Kane Williamson has been ruled out of the upcoming ODI series against Bangladesh due to an elbow injury.
Williamson has a small tear in his left elbow tendon, but he still played every game in the recently-concluded T20I series against Australia.
“Kane’s been managing the elbow injury to varying degrees this summer and unfortunately, it hasn’t improved,” NZC Medical Manager Dayle Shackel said while addressing the media on Tuesday.
“He obviously has a high volume of training and playing across the three formats, which has inhibited his ability to recover. We believe he now needs a period of rest and rehabilitation to get the injury right.
“Time-frames can vary but we’re hopeful that, after an initial rest, he should be able to begin rehabilitation next week.”
NZ head coach Gary Stead, meanwhile, believes that the injury won’t affect Williamson’s participation in the IPL as he is expected to be fit in time to represent Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) with the tournament getting underway from April 9.
“It’s likely in about three weeks that Kane will be pretty close to being right up ready to go so that fits in with the time frames around the start of the IPL,” Stead was quoted as saying by ESPNcricinfo.
“We’ll keep talking with him and Sunrisers Hyderabad as well and just making sure he is 100% before he starts again.”
The Sunrisers will begin their IPL 2021 campaign against the two-time champions Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) on April 11 at MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai.
