"He will have an involvement in Indian cricket for a long time" - Kane Williamson on Umran Malik ahead of IND vs NZ 2022

New Zealand captain Kane Williamson believes speedster Umran Malik has the potential to have a long and successful career for Team India.

Williamson has captained the youngster at Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) and witnessed his breakthrough season in this year's Indian Premier League. In IPL 2022, Malik picked up 22 wickets from just 14 games and won the Emerging Player of the Tournament award.

He was subsequently fast-tracked into the Indian team and has been named in the T20I squad that will face New Zealand in a three-match series starting November 18.

Speaking to reporters ahead of the series, here's what Kane Williamson had to say about the young pacer:

"Umran is a super-exciting talent and I got to spend time with him last year in the IPL and his raw pace was a real asset to the team. To see him on the international team has been a great rise for him. When you've got that ability to bowl 150+ then it's very exciting.

"With him in the squad, there are certainly high hopes that he will have an involvement in Indian cricket for a long time. Playing more and more on such tours will only help him in his journey."

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Kane Williamson on preparations for ODI World Cup

With the T20 World Cup done and dusted, the focus of the top teams will naturally shift towards the ODI World Cup next year to be played in India. New Zealand ended up as runners-up in the 2019 World Cup final, losing to England on boundary count at the end of a thrilling encounter.

Kane Williamson and his men have been particularly good in going deep into the tournaments over the past few years. Williamson feels the ODI series against India later this month could be the right time for the Kiwis to start planning for the next marquee event. He stated:

"I always believe that whatever you have in front of you is the best place to start. As you get further down the line, you start changing the focus. In tournament sport, as we saw in the T20 World Cup, you need to adjust and make those changes quickly on the day.

"But there is also a lot of planning that goes into that. The one-day cricket that we have now and then is very valuable in terms of improving."

It will be interesting to see how the Blackcaps fare against a new-look Team India. They will lock horns in the first T20I on Friday, November 18, at the Wellington Regional Stadium.

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Catch the T20Is on 18th, 20th and 22nd November beginning 11 am, and ODIs on 25th, 27th and 30th November beginning 6 am, only on Prime Video