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Shane Bond will miss this month’s Chappell-Hadlee Series after his recovery from an abdominal tear has taken longer than expected.

New Zealand are set to maintain the same 14-man one-day squad which narrowly lost the one-dayers to South Africa, the national selector Richard Hadlee told a newspaper. James Franklin remains out following knee surgery.

Bond, the fast bowler, will also be unavailable for Bangladesh’s visit in January, all of which he finds “frustrating”. He picked up the problem in November, during New Zealand’s injury-hit tour of South Africa where they won one match out of seven. They lost both the Tests, the Twenty20, the one-day series 1-2 and even the warm-up.

He said it was exhausting to come back from yet another injury and feared for his future in the game should he keep picking up problems. “It’s worn me down,” Bond said on Tuesday.

“I’ve spent a lot of time rehab-ing. There are a lot things I want to achieve and to be realistic, I can’t expect cricket to keep supporting me if I am going to continue to get injured, so it’s frustrating,” he added.

He is now aiming to recover for England’s visit in February and March, when they will play five one-dayers and three Tests. In his absence, Kyle Mills has filled in well and impressed Hadlee. “Mills has been outstanding,” Hadlee said. “With Bond out, he has stepped up magnificently,” he added. Mills was named Man of the Series in South Africa for his nine wickets at 11.33.

He will now lead the attack for New Zealand’s defence of the Chappell-Hadlee title in Australia after their 3-0 cleansweep last season. The first of the three one-dayers is at the Adelaide Oval on December 14.

New Zealand squad: Lou Vincent, Jamie How, Mathew Sinclair, Ross Taylor, Scott Styris, Brendon McCullum (wicket-keeper), Gareth Hopkins, Jacob Oram, Daniel Vettori (captain), Kyle Mills, Mark Gillespie, Jeetan Patel, Michael Mason, Chris Martin.

Source:Cricket News

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