Kiwis wait on Ryder

17 February 2008

An ankle problem has put Jesse Ryder's particpiation in the fourth ODI in Napier in doubt

New Zealand coach John Bracewell will allow Jesse Ryder to prove his fitness ahead of the fourth one-day international against England in Napier.

The left-hander has impressed since making his debut in the Twenty20 internationals this month, but aggravated an ankle injury during the defeat in Auckland on Friday.

Bracewell brought another left-hander Daniel Flynn - also an international novice - into the squad as cover.

Flynn's all-round skills may come into the equation after Paul Hitchcock, who was expensive on his return to international cricket in the six-wicket defeat at Eden Park, was released from the squad for the final two games of the series.

Bracewell said: "We felt we needed to go into the two games with 14 players and we thought we had an excess of bowlers.

"We may have two bowlers doing nothing so we released Paul to go and play some cricket and we needed cover for Jesse Ryder."

Ryder rested the injury - initially diagnosed after a club match in December - over the weekend but Bracewell revealed he has made no decision on his inclusion.

"It's too early to say but we're more confident as the days progress," he added.

"He feels a lot better today and we won't know a lot more until he starts running around on it but he has had these days to heal."

Bracewell also found time to praise Jacob Oram and Daniel Vettori, who have been named as world ODI rankings leaders in the all-rounder and bowling charts respectively.

"It's a result of their hard work," added Bracewell. "It was a condition of our high performance programme that you can't win world championships without people in the right ranking areas.

"We've concentrated on trying to get guys into those areas, on trying to get them world-ranked.

"The thing that delights me is that they're not doing it for themselves; they're doing it for the team and as a consequence of that, their ranking is going up."