Blair Tickner comes into the New Zealand squad, Mitchell Santner on paternity leave

Blair Tickner, Mitchell Santner- Source (Twitter)

Blair Tickner, the right-arm medium pacer, has been brought in as cover for Mitchell Santner, the left-arm spinner, as he could not link up with the New Zealand team until the weekend following the birth of his first child last week. Santner will be on paternal leave as New Zealand gear up to play a tri-series against Bangladesh and Pakistan.

This will be one final series for the Blackcaps as they gear up to iron out their flaws before the 20-20 World Cup 2022 begins. The 28-year-old Tickner has played 11 T20Is for New Zealand and has taken 12 wickets to his credit in the shortest format of the game. He has an economy of 8.79, and Tickner has a decent record in T20I cricket present.

Blair Tickner took seven wickets in three T20I matches against Ireland and the Netherlands while playing for New Zealand on their tour of Europe in the summer. He also received his first NZC central contract earlier this year.

The pace stocks for New Zealand are filled to the brim as they boast of the availability of Trent Boult, Lockie Ferguson and Tim Southee, which means that Tickner will only come in for anyone of the lead pacers if anyone suffers an injury or in case he is given the go-ahead over the senior players.

Pakistan and Bangladesh will square off in the first game of the tri-series. Before the final takes place on October 14th, the three teams will play each other twice in a round-robin format. All the games will be held in Christchurch.

"Certainly, the goal is to rotate the squad across the playing opportunities through that tri-series and to basically fine-tune what has been our existing game plan over the recent time," Larsen was quoted as saying by the local media.

"There's certainly nothing majorly different that we're going to be focusing on - they're very important preparation games for us."