Cricket: Promising Glenn Phillips links up with NZ A

Glenn Phillips. Photo / Photosport

New Zealand A start their five-game one-day series against India A tomorrow night hoping to arrest the disappointing start to the tour.

Both first-class matches produced hefty defeats in Vijayawada, and well inside four days.
India A won the first by an innings and 31 runs, and the second by an innings and 26 runs this week.

The one planned personnel change for the one-dayers is dashing young Auckland wicketkeeper-batsman Glenn Phillips, who replaces his provincial teammate Jeet Raval in the squad.

However another Auckland player, Sean Solia, has had rotten luck, ruled out of the one-dayers with a hamstring injury, without having had an opportunity in the four-day fixtures.

He has been replaced by big-hitting allrounder Colin de Grandhomme, who is also in the senior squad to tour India this month. He will only be available for the last two matches.

Phillips has never been to India so reckons the experience "will be very cool".

It might also be a chance to push himself closer to a national team callup.

He played one T20 international against South Africa last summer but he caught the eye of Caribbean Premier League side Jamaica Tallawahs and had seven games there recently.

New Zealand's short-form wicketkeeper last season, Luke Ronchi, has retired. Phillips would seem to be at, or near the head of the queue to replace the Wellington gloveman.

Six players from the NZ A side will be added to the nine players already announced for the senior tour of India.

One of them would seem to be another wicketkeeper, to work alongside batsman Tom Latham, who is determined to further burnish his keeping skills.

Phillips, Northern Districts' Tim Seifert and Tom Blundell of Wellington are in the NZ A squad. Seifert produced a couple of handy batting displays but Phillips certainly doesn't see it as three players competing against each other.

"We are all team mates and trying to work towards a common goal. We're not going to bag each other. Whoever is in most form will end up taking the gloves, and it depends who is more valuable to the team," Phillips said.

All three are capable batsmen. Phillips wants to make the most of his chance in new conditions and he certainly doesn't think New Zealand are no chance of getting some success in the one-dayers, all of which will be played in Visakhapatnam.

"India will always be a decent handful. But we've trained well over winter and are pretty prepared for it," he said.

"It'll be good to go and learn as much as we possibly can. I want to try and gain as much knowledge as I can but it'll definitely be a big learning experience."