Trent Boult will be not playing New Zealand during their home summer, but head coach Gary Stead is hopeful of having the left-arm seamer back next year.
Gary Stead opens on Trent Boult’s international future
New Zealand have failed to reach finals in the World Cup 2023 as they lost the match to India by 70 runs.
The New Zealand Pacer gave up his New Zealand contract last August to spend more time with family and continue playing franchise cricket around the World.
After his decision, Boult reunited with the team for the World Cup 2023 in India. But he had made clear about his unavailable for New Zealand’s next assignment, a two match Test series in Bangladesh.
But Boult will be in action for Deccan Gladiators in the Abu Dhabi in T10 league. Boult will be playing with MI Emirates who had retained ahead of the ILT20, the UAE T20 league which is scheduled between January 19 to February 18 in 2024.
“At this stage, Trent and I still need to have a conversation,” Stead said after New Zealand lost to India in the World Cup semi-finals in Mumbai. “He’s unavailable for the Bangladesh Test series. He’s got other commitments in a T10 league, and then the UAE T20 league as well. I think that eats right into the February time period.
“So, it looks unlikely that Trent will play too much in our home summer. He may be available for the T20s against Australia. I still need to have that conversation with him.”
“I think there’s every chance [we will see him again] provided his desire is there to keep playing,” Stead said. “I think he’s still a world class bowler.”
Boult and Tim Southee might have played their last ODI World Cup. With them crossing their 30+ age, former coach Mike Hesson does not see them making it to the 2027 World Cup in South Africa.
“It’s probably in the bowling we’re going to see some changing,” Hesson told.
He also spoke about the Adam Milne and Lockie Ferguson saying that seamers probably won’t be playing in next four year time.
“They are all in slightly different stages [of their careers]. And there’s not a huge amount [of seamers] just underneath at the moment. That’s where someone like Kyle Jamieson has to absolutely pick that next group of bowlers and run with them.
They’ve tried a lot of guys in recent tours – [Henry] Shipley, [Jacob] Duffy, [Blair] Ticker has come in and done a bit as well. They brought the left-armer from Auckland – [Ben] Lister. They’ve tried lots but no one has really grabbed it just yet and that’s probably the area where I’m a little bit worried about the next group of Black Caps.”
Boult and Southee are New Zealand’s senior members in their World Cup squad. On this occasion, Captain Kane Williamson had said that it’s not the end of the road yet for New Zealand’s golden era.
“It’s an ongoing effort as a side to keep trying to get better and push the boundaries of where we can get to as a team,” Williamson said at his press conference after the semi-final.
“You can only hope that, as we experienced from some of our leaders as young guys, that we can continue to bring players through – not just in the quality that [the senior players] bring, because we’ve seen that in spades throughout the last seven weeks, but also in how they’re approaching their cricket in order to try and move this team forwards.
“I think we’ve seen that too – so some good signs, certainly, in this last period of time. It’s not over just yet, but that’s where the focus is. You come to these tournaments and they can be small margins [which determine] whether you get further or not, but ultimately, it’s about growing as a group and becoming a better cricket team.
I think the seven weeks were really valuable for us as a side: we wanted to go further, naturally, but we’ll reflect on it and take a lot of good out of it.”
“Look, I’m very, very proud of the way we played,” Stead said. “We stuck to our style of play and we fired some shots as well. That’s what we keep talking about. Obviously disappointed that we didn’t get over the line.
You always go to world events and you want to make the final or you want to win the final. That’s the disappointing part of it, but the way we went about our cricket, it was a pretty satisfying campaign still.”
New Zealand will be playing a two match test series against Bangladesh starting on November 28 at Sylhet International Cricket Stadium.
