Fears for Black Caps’ health but Australia fit and set to fire

With temperatures high and air quality low, there are real concerns for New Zealand’s ailing Test captain and team members.

New Zealand bowler Tim Southee takes part in a training session at the SCG on Thursday. Picture: AAP

With temperatures high and air quality low, there are real concerns for New Zealand’s ailing Test captain and team members, especially given the plight of England’s Joe Root at the same venue two years before.

Some form of flu has gone through the visitors on the eve of the third Test at the SCG. Kane Williamson and batsman Henry Nicholls have not been sighted for two days. On Thursday spinner Mitchell Santner joined the list of the afflicted. Even the team’s media manager, Willy, brother of Henry Nicholls, is laid up.

Root had to be hospitalised with dehydration when he found himself fielding in the hot Sydney sun while suffering gastroenteritis during the 2017-18 Ashes.

The temperature is supposed to be below 30C on Friday, but will rise close to 40C on Saturday. Sydney is living under a blanket of smoke, some days are better than others, but plans are in place to suspend play if the winds turn things bad again.

It’s not a place to be if you have a respiratory illness.

Tom Latham, one of those who has so far avoided the sickness, admitted it was a far from ideal situation.

“It’s gone around the team a little bit which obviously isn’t ideal but fingers crossed, they’re resting up today and hopefully they’ll wake up and be good to go,” Latham said.

The Kiwis have already lost Lockie Ferguson and Trent Boult to injury. Things will get awkward if they have to replace two batsmen as they have only one left in the squad.

Santner’s illness gives the selectors a good excuse to bring in either Will Somerville or Todd Astle to replace the incumbent spinner, who has not been having a good time of it.

Third Test Australia v New Zealand

Towards the end of the Melbourne match, Tim Southee looked exhausted from all his bowling in the first two Tests and could struggle with the quick turnaround. Neil Wagner has bowled a stupid number of overs but shows no signs of flagging.

The Australian side is so well placed it is almost an embarrassment. Josh Hazlewood was replaced by James Pattinson and nobody missed a beat; Steve Smith has not scored a century but the team has not lost a Test; there is nobody ill and nobody under pressure to keep their place.

The home side is, however, dangling the possibility of dropping a seam bowler or a batsman should they need two spinners.

“Luckily we could probably do both if we had to,” Paine said.

“We’ve got some guys around our squad that could provide quite a bit of flexibility and even with someone like James Pattinson can really lengthen our batting anyway.

“Both (options) have been discussed a little bit. Our preference would be to keep a winning combination together.

“Marnus (Labuschagne) as that second spin option is always improving and I think the more game bowling he will get the more of a threat he will become as well.”

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There is little chance the second specialist spinner, Mitchell Swepson, will play and while it would be a good opportunity for him it is an equally good opportunity to ask Labuschagne to accept some extra responsibility and bowl more.

“He (Labuschagne) is a hard worker, he doesn’t stop batting and the only time he does stop batting is to go and bowl,” Paine said. “He’s improving all the time. The challenge is to make sure he gets enough overs in game in Shield and County cricket. And then he won’t be far off being a genuine option as an allrounder.

“He is obviously going to be picked in our side for the runs he scores, someone who can give us a great deal of flexibility in how we go about shaping teams. Not just in red ball, but he is going to have some impact in white-ball teams as well. He is a bit of a triple-threat cricketer at the moment. The more overs we can get him in games, whether it’s Shield, County or Test matches. That’s his biggest improvement.”

If Australia win this match it will complete a clean sweep of the summer, but they will have to guard against dead-rubber syndrome to do so.

“We spoke this morning about making sure that we turn up tomorrow with the same energy and focus that we turned up at the Gabba and that starts with training,” Paine said. “We’ve deliberately gone in a little lighter because it’s been a heavy summer in hot conditions so we want guys to be fresh mentally but we also want to make sure we’ve ticked all the boxes.

“Also had some time to get away from cricket over New Year’s and Christmas so the feeling around is great. All I’ve asked tomorrow is we turn up expecting NZ to come out hard and expecting it to be another fight for five days. We feel if we can match them in that area that eventually we’ll be able to wear them down.”