New Zealand coach Stead defends omitting Boult and selecting Kuggeleijn

New Zealand’s head coach, Gary Stead, has defended two potentially divisive selection calls before the first Test against England after opting against sending an SOS to Trent Boult and calling up the uncapped Scott Kuggeleijn.

A recurrence of the stress fracture that saw Kyle Jamieson miss the last seven months of cricket – plus seamer Matt Henry now absent from the series opener on paternity leave – might have prompted the Black Caps to ask Boult about his availability.

But while the 33-year-old left-armer lives 20 minutes from Bay Oval and is back from playing T20 cricket in the United Arab Emirates, his decision to turn down a New Zealand national contract and go freelance last August put paid to this notion.

Asked about Boult, the architect of England’s 58 all out in their previous day-night Test in New Zealand, Stead replied: “We discussed it internally but our decision was not to go with Trent. It has been decided since he gave up his contract that we will give priority to the locally contracted players and we have done that on this occasion.”

Stead declined to say this was the end of a Test career that has returned 313 wickets from 79 caps – “With the way the cricket world is moving so quickly, it would be remiss of me to make too many predictions” – but for now the hosts are looking elsewhere.

It means two uncapped seamers in Kuggeleijn and Jacob Duffy have been added to the hosts’ squad, even though the former – a 31-year-old bowling all-rounder for Northern Districts – remains a controversial figure in New Zealand cricket.

Kuggeleijn was charged with rape in 2015 and subsequently tried twice, with a hung jury in 2016 followed by a not guilty verdict in early 2017. However, the details heard by the two juries