Neesham can be a weapon for us - McCullum

Brendon McCullum has said that Jimmy Neesham can become a "real weapon" for New Zealand at the top of the order in limited-overs cricket. The allrounder will open the batting in the first T20 against West Indies. The opportunity has come about with New Zealand choosing not to fly in reinforcements for the tour-ending two T20s after the Tests, and could make it easier to include both allrounders Neesham and Corey Anderson in the side's future limited-overs plans.

"One of the real positives out of this is being able to give guys who may not have had some of the opportunities they are going to get otherwise," McCullum said. "Jimmy Neesham at the top, I am excited to see how he goes. He has got the game to succeed at the top of the order in the short version of cricket. I don't want to see him focus on that in Test cricket because he has made a great start in the role he is in but short version I think he can be a real weapon for us at the top and allows us to balance our attack nicely as well and get both allrounders into the line-up."

New Zealand's coach Mike Hesson echoed the same sentiments. "He's a power player. He's a guy that can hit the ball from ball one and can play seam and spin equally well. He's got the attributes, so we'll give him a good opportunity."


Jimmy Neesham was caught and bowled playing this shot, West Indies v New Zealand, 2nd Test, Trinidad, 4th day, June 19, 2014
Jimmy Neesham has been in fine form on the West Indies tour © Associated Press
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New Zealand secured a hard-fought Test series win with a relatively inexperienced XI. McCullum was looking forward to seeing more young players taking up their opportunity. "Ish Sodhi will make his debut tomorrow and the wicket looks like it should favour his sort of bowling so hopefully he will perform well and we will continue to build the depths and strengths of our short-version team.

"I must admit it is a little bit hard to refocus somewhat on two T20 games at the end of the tour but we have some high standards that we try and live by and this will be a good test of whether we can remain consistent with our traits and characteristics that we want to be known for in a different format in a challenging situation.

"We will wait and see. You never really know. In T20 you can prepare as well as you possibly can and things don't go your way so with a bit of luck I think we have got the team that can win these next two games."

McCullum said New Zealand were up against a "formidable" T20 team. "Very good team, even without Chris Gayle in their ranks. The guys opening the batting are two proven T20 players so they have got a lot of power throughout their batting line-up… Sunil Narine leading their attack with the mystery he brings as well as Samuel Badree.

"They are a formidable team and they are going to be a tough proposition for us but even though we haven't got some of our better T20 players here, a lot of our guys have played a lot of domestic T20 cricket so hopefully we feel well and are able to finish the tour on a high note."

so nice!