Blackcaps coach Gary Stead has hinted he may break up his world champion team to ease the load across upcoming tours this year.
Returning members of the NZ men's cricket team are currently serving out their two-week COVID-19 managed isolation in Auckland, reflecting on their victory over India in last month's World Test Championship final.
Specifically, Stead is using that time to carry out player reviews for the entire 2020/21 campaign and plan forward to a busy schedule over coming months.
"While we've had a pretty successful year and it's nice that we got the spoils in the end, but if you reflect across the whole season, over the last 12 months, it's been a very, very successful time across all formats, which is nice.
"It's also a time you can really challenge players to keep working on getting better."
With tours of Bangladesh, Pakistan and India on the horizon, as well as the T20 World Cup, recently moved to the United Arab Emirates, Stead is mindful of not overtaxing his players, who face a month's break, after their current confinement.
"It's a really challenging time selection-wise and we're really conscious of the welfare of the players, being away from that period of time as well, and then include quarantine on top of that," he says.
"It's fair to expect we will probably not see the same players attend right throughout the whole four tours and we're just working through what that might look like from a selection point of view right now."
While wicketkeeper BJ Watling is the only official retirement, veteran batsman Ross Taylor, 37, insists he still has life left in his career, while captain Kane Williamson will need to manage an elbow injury that threatened to derail his test championship aspirations.
"I think one of the reasons for our success over the last two years has been the stability of our group," says Stead. "There haven't been a lot of player changes or retirements, so it's been a prett consistent team, while still introducing some new players in that time.
"Players like Kyle Jamieson, Devon Conway, Daryl Mitchell and Will Young are guys that come to mind, who have proven they are good enough to be international players right now. That's exciting for the team and healthy for the group that here's some internal competition."
