Ollie Robinson named in Sussex team for warm-up game against New Zealand, but day one rained off

Sussex included England pace bowler Ollie Robinson to play in the four-day warm-up game against New Zealand, but heavy rain put pay to play on day one, while the visitors have confirmed three Covid cases.

Robinson was recently left out of Brendon McCullum's first England squad with England Men's Cricket managing director Rob Key explaining why.

"He's had a bit of misfortune; he's had a tummy bug, he's been injured and then had a pretty serious tooth problem so it's just meant that he hasn't played enough cricket," Key said.

"We don't feel that he's in a position where we can select him because of what's happened at the start of this year."

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Robinson was one of the 13 players selected by Sussex head coach Ian Salisbury as his team take on the ICC World Test Champions.

The match is a friendly as the visitors begin preparations for their three-Test series against England in June, which will be shown live on Sky Sports.

Jofra Archer will be out for the remainder of the season following the ECB's announcement that he has been diagnosed with a stress fracture to his back. Jack Carson and Steve Finn remain sidelined.

Mohammad Rizwan is unavailable following a bereavement in his family.

Three Covid cases in Black Caps' camp

Three of the New Zealand touring party are in isolation after testing positive for Covid-19 on the morning of the match.

Henry Nicholls, Blair Tickner and bowling coach Shane Jurgensen have begun five days of hotel room isolation after producing positive tests on Friday morning.

The remainder of the tour party have returned negative tests and will continue to be monitored and tested as required.

Sussex squad: Tom Alsop, Jamie Atkins, George Burrows, Oli Carter (wk), Tom Clark, Henry Crocombe, Tom Haines (c), Fynn Hudson-Prentice, Sean Hunt, Dan Ibrahim, Ali Orr, Delray Rawlins, Ollie Robinson

New Zealand impose stricter Covid guidelines

Sky Sports has learnt New Zealand have since put stricter protocols in place now, and are unsure how the outbreak could have started.

These protocols are confirmed as avoiding mass gatherings and events of high exposure, mask wearing when indoors with people outside of the environment and unable to socially distance, immediate testing if symptoms discovered, immediate five-day hotel room isolation of positive cases, immediate testing of close contacts of positive cases.

"They're all feeling okay [those who tested positive], but unfortunately at the moment they've been struck down with that virus," New Zealand head coach Gary Stead told Sky Sports on Friday.

"I guess all we try and do is minimise and mitigate the risk that's out there, and we have protocols in place that we've been following but I guess it's the nature of the virus that it's highly contagious and can be caught.

"We're not sure how that's happened, but it's happened.

"They've got five days that they're locked down for, and we just need to keep checking in with them.

"They will travel separately to the next ground that we travel to, so they aren't going to be part of our team, to minimise the chance of others catching that.

"Let hope they recover quickly and don't get any bad symptoms.

"We're in a situation where we're not in a lockdown bubble or anything like that, but we're not going big gatherings and will wear masks inside.

"Unfortunately it's happened, and we're not sure how. The three guys that have caught it haven't been socialising together or anything like that, so we're not sure what the source is.

"Everyone has got triple vaccination, and what we'll doing is testing everyone in the party for the next three days, and anyone who has symptoms goes through the normal protocols of reporting that immediately to our doctor that's with us."

Tymal Mills talks Archer, injuries and form

Sussex's Tymal Mills also spoke to Sky Sports on Friday after confirming that Day 1 of their clash with New Zealand was rained off.

Hot on the agenda was the news that his club teammate and England's Jofra Archer would miss the rest of the season with a stress fracture of the back.

"I caught up with him [Archer] the other day. He's been having different scans and was supposed to playing the second team with us next week before playing in the Blast," Mills said.

"He's obviously gutted. I've been in a similar situation myself, back-to-back injuries over a prolonged period of time, it's tough and takes its toll mentally as well.

"He's got a brilliant support network both here at Sussex and with England, and back in Barbados as well.

"Everybody will get around him but it's really tough news to here.

"He's still young and hopefully his best years are still ahead of him."

On his own injury situation and form, Mills added: "I came home early from the IPL, I had a bit of an ankle complaint, but I should be fine for next week for the start of the Blast, and looking forward to that.

"I'm going to try and take last summer's success into this year as well. I had a really strong summer last year, and back-to-back T20 World Cups is exciting and doesn't happen very often.

"I pulled my quad during the World Cup which was really frustrating, so I just want to hopefully do as much as I can with the Blast and then the Hundred after that and some T20s in the middle.

"Just try and stay fit and try and perform, and hopefully be on that plane come October again."