Cricket World Cup: Tim Southee cleared to play after fracturing thumb, Kane Williamson eyes warm up return

Tim Southee has been cleared to join the Black Caps in India later this week for the Cricket World Cup and remains a chance to play in the opening game against England.

The 34-year-old paceman continues to progress his recovery from surgery on his fractured right thumb which he suffered against England earlier this month.

Black Caps coach Gary Stead said he the surgery had gone well and they were looking forward to Southee being involved in the tournament.

“He had surgery where he had five pins put into his thumb, he caught up with the hand therapist yesterday and he’s catching up with the surgeon on Friday.”

Stead said things had gone well, the surgeon was happy by all accounts with the surgery, that surgeons are usually quite conservative so he was glad Southee had received the tick of approval.

“Really the key thing will be around making sure the wound heals in time, that will be probably be the biggest issue we will face.”

He will depart for World Cup on Saturday with an aim of being available to face the defending champions on October 5 in Ahmedabad.

As a contingency, pace-bowler Kyle Jamieson will also join the World Cup squad in India, having just played in the series win over Bangladesh.

Jamieson will not officially be part of the World Cup squad and therefore not available to play in any of the warm-up matches scheduled for Friday against Pakistan and Monday against South Africa.

The second group of Black Caps players and support staff depart to India from Christchurch today, including skipper Kane Williamson who is overcoming an serious knee injury.

Speaking to media before boarding the flight, Williamson said he wasn’t experiencing much discomfort but he expected the load to increase as preparations for the tournament ramp up.

“Not a huge amount, although the load is going to keep increasing so there’s a little bit of an unknown but it has felt pretty good really in the last few weeks and I’m hoping that it continues to feel like that.”

The 33-year-old injured his knee and suffered an ACL injury while playing for the Gujarat Titans in the Indian Premier League on April 2. He his hopeful to return to the Black Caps squad for the World Cup warm up matches.

“That’s the plan, is to have some involvement in the warm up games.”

He said the injury was unlikely to affect his approach to batting, but experienced the most issues when coming to a halt after running so hinted there may be a minor fielding position change.

“We’ll definitely consider some of that, where I field I mean, usually it’s mid off which will probably remain the case. It’s probably slightly better suited to it than maybe square of the wicket. Potentially some slip, but I won’t be standing there if we don’t require one.”

The Black Caps first World Cup warm up match is against Pakistan on September 29 in Hyderabad, first ball at 9.30pm (NZT).