AUS vs NZ | Kane Williamson going through a tough phase in his career, admits Gary Stead

AUS vs NZ | Kane Williamson going through a tough phase in his career, admits Gary Stead

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New Zealand coach Gary Stead admitted that skipper Kane Williamson is going through a tough phase as the otherwise fluent batter has scored only 240 runs in his last 10 Test innings. Stead couldn’t help but credit Australia for their all-round performance that has rendered the visitors helpless.

Coming off a series win against England at home, everything that could potentially go wrong went wrong for the Kiwis in Australia, having been thrashed in both of the first two Tests. With the series already lost, the Kiwis will be heading to Sydney with determination to salvage some pride and clinch the final game.

Kiwi coach Gary Stead acknowledged the quality of the Australian side and stressed that the visitors need to keep working hard to get the Kangaroos, who are at the top of their game, under some kind of pressure.

"We were obviously beaten up by Australia again," Stead said, reported Cricbuzz. "I want to acknowledge how well they played; we're up against a quality team at the very top of their game. We've got to find some areas where we can keep chipping away, make improvements and put Australia under pressure for longer."

While the bowlers have toiled hard in the series so far but in vain, it is the visitors’ batting which is to be questioned, and in particular the form of skipper Kane Williamson. Williamson has scored only 57 in four innings in the series so far, the No.3 Test batsman in the world has only a ton and a half-century, that too at home, to his name in his last 10 innings.

Stead, while admitting that it's a challenging phase of the otherwise flamboyant batsman’s career, pointed out that it's New Zealand's batting as a whole which has been struggling in this three-match Test series thus far.

"It's not just Kane. Many of our players have had a pretty tough time over here and that's the pressure that gets put on," Stead said. "You saw his dismissal it was pretty unlucky, and on another day it can be given not out and he carries on and could have got a hundred. Kane is fine. Like all players you go through ups and downs and some times are more challenging. This is obviously a challenging part of his career, as it is with all players.

"When you get put under pressure for the periods Australia have put us under, then you have to question what we're doing," Stead said. "Australia have three bowlers at 145kmh and a spinner that's taken over 300 test wickets so you're always up against it. You don't get a reprieve and that's the hard thing for us."

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