Openers Hamish Rutherford and Peter Fulton have pulled out of the two-day practice game between New Zealand XI and the visiting Indians ahead of the two-match Test series next month. The practice game will be played at Whangarei on February 2-3 before the Test series begins on February 6 in Auckland. Fulton and Rutherford decided to pull out in favour of playing for their provinces in the Plunket Shield, New Zealand’s domestic first class championships, a media report said. Canterbury’s George Worker has been called in as one replacement, with New Zealand Cricket’s general manager national selection Bruce Edgar saying that the other would need to first pass a fitness test. According to the ‘Fairfax NZ News’ report, Edgar said Fulton and Rutherford must have felt that it would be better to play in their domestic first class championships as the two-day practice game against India would be just a one-innings affair and thus would lack intensity. “This match (Feb 2-3 practice game), because it’s a non-first class game and pretty much a practice game, will be a single-innings affair,” said Edgar. “On reflection, Peter Fulton and also Hamish Rutherford are now going to play Plunket Shield because they certainly have a chance to maybe get two innings instead of one.” Talking particularly about Fulton, he said, “He (Fulton) also played in the New Zealand XI game against the West Indies (at Lincoln in November) and felt, perhaps, the intensity wasn’t quite there.” In that practice match, a handful of West Indian players were joined by New Zealand provincial players to make up 11 players. NZ upbeat about series win Unperturbed by India’s remarkable come-from-behind performance in the thrilling tied third ODI, New Zealand wicketkeeper Luke Ronchi on Monday said that with a comfortable 2-0 lead, the hosts are well on course to win the five-match ODI series. New Zealand just need one win of the two remaining ODIs to seal the series, and Ronchi exuded confidence of achieving the target. “We didn’t lose in Auckland. We obviously would have liked to have won. I think a tie was pretty fair result since both sides played some good cricket. It was a serious game of cricket to watch and be a part of. I think it was a fair result in the end,” he said . “We are still playing good cricket and still in a good mind frame, we have to keep going that way. We are very much on target to win the series,” he said. “There were opportunities missed in the field. With batting, you sort of think you could have picked up a run here or there maybe. There are so many different situations where you can think we could have made one run there.”
