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New Zealand confident Bond will play

Shane Bond is still expected to be fit for the first Test at Centurion despite concerns over a knee injury which forced him to sit out most of the tour opener at Benoni

Cricinfo staff
11-Apr-2006


Shane Bond should be fit and ready for the first Test © Getty Images
Shane Bond is still expected to be fit for the first Test at Centurion despite concerns over a knee injury which forced him to sit out most of the tour opener at Benoni.
A spokesman for the New Zealanders said medical staff were confident Bond would be ready. "It's not a structural thing like a medial ligament. There's a connecting tendon that sometimes gets a bit inflamed, so as a precaution we took him out of here to have a look at it. It's a reoccurrence of something we knew about and it will be carefully managed."
Lindsay Crocker, the team's manager, told reporters that Bond had been undergoing treatment and was walking freely.
Crocker added that the entire squad was still jet-lagged and that they had all been given Wednesday off to recover.