Nick Kelly Leads Firebirds into First Test of the Summer

After recently featuring in the New Zealand A squad for their tour of Australia, Nick Kelly leads the Firebirds for Round 1 of the Plunket Shield.

‍

All four new additions to the Firebirds contract list have made the first squad of the summer, with Gareth Severin and Nick Greenwood bringing reinforcements to the batting stocks, Muhammad Abbas providing an all-round threat, and James Hartshorn bolstering the pace attack.

‍

A young Firebirds side will be looking to pick up where they left off, finishing the 2022/23 year strongly in the latter half of the Plunket Shield campaign, headlined by centuries from recent debutants Severin and Abbas.

‍

Tom Blundell’s recent call-up to the BLACKCAPS at the ODI World Cup as injury cover for Kane Williamson leaves the veteran wicketkeeper unavailable for the first Firebirds game of the summer.

‍

Racin Ravindra, Devon Conway, and Logan van Beek are also unavailable for selection due to their international duties at the World Cup in India.

‍

The Firebirds 2023/24 campaign gets underway at 10:30am tomorrow morning on October 20th at the Cello Basin Reserve. Live streaming and scoring is available at the NZC website - nzc.nz

‍

‍

WELLINGTON FIREBIRDS | PLUNKET SHIELD ROUND 1 vs CANTERBURY | Cello Basin Reserve, October 20th – 23rd 2023

Muhammad Abbas

Nick Greenwood

James Hartshorn

Troy Johnson

Nick Kelly (c)

Callum McLachlan (wk)

Tim Robinson

Ben Sears

Gareth Severin

Nathan Smith

Michael Snedden

Peter Younghusband

‍