Kane Williamson – New Zealand don’t usually get such a volume of Tests

Williamson highlighted the importance of New Zealand learning to play differently in Asia and touched on the difficulty of playing long-form cricket in just staccato bursts.

“I think it’s absolutely about trying to adjust your game,” he said, “because we’re not here consistently in this format. We go through quite long intervals of not playing here. So you know it is trying to sort of familiarise yourself again and for us, our last Test match was sort of six or eight months ago. So you know, as a team it’s really connecting with that again as a red-ball group and looking to apply our skills, our plans as well as we can.”

Williamson was looking forward, though, to facing that challenge again, starting with New Zealand’s first ever Test match against Afghanistan. “It’s really important that we look to grow as a unit,” he said. “It’s nice and clear on how we want to play over here. We always know that it’s a tough challenge whenever you play in these parts of the world, slightly different from back home. But you know always a great experience and playing against a really, really strong side.”

“In some ways it’s like tournament sport, isn’t it?” Williamson said. “Even though it’s over a longer period of time in the Test Championship, but the value of games is high. The context around Test cricket with the Test Championship is really key and it’s brought out a lot of really exciting games. And so naturally having six Test matches together is a big part of our Test Championship calendar and one that we’re excited about.”