The BLACKCAPS left New Zealand on Sunday for their ICC World T20 campaign, which began with a training camp in Abu Dhabi, featuring practice matches against English county sides Worcestershire and Derbyshire, who the BLACKCAPS last met on their tour of England in 2013.
It's the perfect way to get some of the hard work done before the tournament proper - the team leave for Bangladesh on Friday 14 March and begin their World T20 in earnest with two warm up matches against Pakistan at the Sher-Bangla Stadium in Dhaka on Monday 17 March and against Australia in Fatullah, on the outskirts of Dhaka, on Wednesday 19 March. The BLACKCAPS will be based in Chittagong for their pool games, and the first match of the tournament is against England in the early hours of Sunday 23 March.
Here are the results of the two practice matches - you can see the thoughts of the Derbyshire team about that match on their site.
BLACKCAPS v Worcestershire, Bayed Stadium, Abu Dhabi
Worcestershire won the toss and elected to bat.
Derbyshire 52 all out from 15 overs (TA Boult 3-1-2-3, NL McCullum 4-1-12-2, CJ Anderson 2-0-14-2)
New Zealand 53 for 1 in 5 overs (MJ Guptill 29, A Devcich 14*, BB McCullum 9*)
New Zealand won by 9 wickets*
*Continued to bat the remaining part of the innings and scored 194 for 7 from 20 overs (BB McCullum 51, C Munro 47, MJ Guptill 29)
BLACKCAPS v Derbyshire, Bayed Stadium, Abu Dhabi
New Zealand won the toss and elected to bat.
177 for 5 from 20 overs (MJ Guptill 51, KS Williamson 32, L Ronchi 31*)
Derbyshire 152 for 6 from 20 over in reply (TG Southee 4-0-25-2, CJ Anderson 2-0-12-1)
New Zealand won by 25 runs
Some photos from Abu Dhabi:
