Kane Williamson vows to play through pain barrier
Thursday 17 December 2015 09:45, UK
New Zealand batsman Kane Williamson has no concerns about playing with a suspected broken finger in the second Test against Sri Lanka.
Williamson took a nasty blow to the hand during the first innings of the Black Caps' victory in the series opener in Dunedin last week.
He scored 88 and 71 and became only the fifth player to pass 1,000 Test runs this year.
Ahead of the final Test in Hamilton which starts on Friday, Williamson described his injury as "part and parcel" of cricket and said he would not seek treatment during the series.
When asked whether he thought the finger was broken, he said: "It's irrelevant if it is or not, nothing will change.
"You get a few knocks on the fingers and when it doesn't get hit, it settles a little bit and gets a bit less sensitive."
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The home side won the first Test in Dunedin by 122 runs despite losing the toss and being forced to bat first, and the world's No 3 ranked batsman said they will stick with the same team for the second Test after being presented with another seamer-friendly wicket in Hamilton.
Williamson added: "We're playing the same (line-up) as the last match, with the look of the surface we will go in with that extra seamer.
"It's green, Dunedin was green, and we just feel it might be more suited to seam bowling."
Meanwhile, Sri Lanka skipper Angelo Mathews has indicated he will stick with the same line-up.
"The wicket's really green, lots of grass on it, so it's definitely bowl first and if we bowl first we'll look to rectify the mistakes that we did in Dunedin because we were nowhere near our best," he said.
"This will do a lot more than Dunedin, it has a lot more grass and the seamers will come into play. It doesn't really matter if we lose the series 2-0. We've got to go out there and keep positive right from the word go, not look to be too cautious, just go out there and play good cricket."
