Rob Walter sees 54 players from NZ playing in Asia as 'massive positive'

New Zealand men's head coach Rob Walter sees over 50 players from the country currently getting a taste of top-flight cricket in the subcontinent as a "massive positive". Their senior men's side is currently in Bangladesh for six white-ball matches, their men's A side is in Sri Lanka to play first-class and one-day matches, and there are 18 New Zealand players combined in the IPL and PSL currently.

Walter said that they never planned to bring many players from the Sri Lanka A tour to Bangladesh because they wanted to spread their net as wide as possible in terms of players understanding different types of conditions.

"If we sent our entire team to Sri Lanka and then bring them here, we have missed out on an opportunity to give 12 other players opportunity to develop their skills in Sri Lanka," Walter said. "We try to use our opportunities as much as we possibly can. It's been reported that we have got 54 New Zealand cricketers playing right now in different parts of the world, be that IPL, PSL, here and in Sri Lanka. It's just under half of our contracted players in the country. So for us, it's a massive positive.

"We are giving a large number of players international experience at different levels, trying to make sure that we strengthen our whole system and not just a small group of players. We understand that the international cricket is challenging because a lot of players are getting pulled in different directions, and ultimately, we have to take care of that and make sure we are ready. Whoever we are competing against, we have got a number of cricketers who are internationally ready. So using whatever opportunities and tours we can, we like to use those as smartly as we possibly can."

The squad that has traveled to Bangladesh isn't short of match experience in these conditions too. Seven players in the touring party - Adithya Ashok, Ben Lister, Dean Foxcroft, Jayden Lennox, Josh Clarkson, Muhammad Abbas and Nick Kelly - toured Bangladesh with the A side in May last year. Apart from that, Will Young and Henry Nicholls have already played international cricket with the senior side in Bangladesh.

"There were a number of guys in the squad that were here in the New Zealand A series," Walter said. "The game that was played (at the Shere Bangla National Stadium) was obviously a four-day game, but it's good that they've been in these conditions before. That series was in May, so a similar type of time of year. Any of that experience coming to Bangladesh is handy and it puts you in good stead moving forward."

Walter further said that New Zealand's main goal is to expose their "next-in-line" players against a team like Bangladesh that's strong at home, and to learn from these conditions to get some experience under their belt.

"Obviously, it's always a plus for us to expose, if you wanted to call them our next-in-line cricketers, to quality opposition," he said. "I think Bangladesh is a quality team. They've shown that it just recently beaten Pakistan. So being able to expose our sort of lesser-experienced players to quality opposition in foreign conditions is a massive positive for us.

"You can't buy experience, you know, you have to actually get out into the cauldron and actually play. We have that opportunity with this group to put them in those conditions against good opposition, to see how their games stack up. Most importantly, we just keep learning. Our main driver is to keep learning and getting better as cricketers and as a unit."

The ODI series begins on Friday with the first two games to be played in Dhaka and the third in Chattogram, and all three matches now starting at 11am local time, instead of the earlier announced 2pm, as part of an energy-saving initiative. The three T20Is to follow will start at 2pm local time. Walter said that they can't change a lot of their planning, but the new timing could help make it a more even contest.

"You would think maybe the heat might then impact the pitch, and you don't have the dew factor to consider in the evenings," he said. "Potentially makes it a fairer contest between bat and ball, because the dew is not a consideration. But then on the flip side of that, you're probably having to deal with a pitch that may potentially slow up a little bit, being in the heat to hold that."

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