T20 World Cup 2022: "His batting form is not good" - Aakash Chopra on New Zealand's weakness heading into the tournament

Aakash Chopra has picked Kane Williamson's indifferent recent form as New Zealand's weakness heading into the T20 World Cup 2022.

The Black Caps will begin their campaign in the tournament against Trans-Tasman rivals Australia in Sydney on Saturday, October 22. They suffered a humiliating nine-wicket defeat against South Africa in their first warm-up match on Monday and will want to give a better account of themselves in the second game against India on Wednesday.

In a video shared on his YouTube channel, Chopra reckoned the Kiwi skipper's poor form could prove to be their Achilles heel. He elaborated:

"The first weakness I would say is Kane Williamson as a T20 batter. He scored a fifty recently after a long time, it was a good knock in the final, but his batting form is not good. He slows down this team slightly."

The former India opener highlighted the SunRisers Hyderabad (SRH) skipper's poor returns in IPL 2022, saying:

"He played well in the World Cup final and now again in the final. So he is playing well in the finals but the IPL was extremely ordinary. He is not really that gun batter."

Chopra, however, does not see any other apparent weakness in the New Zealand side. He observed:

"There are aggressive batters around him. Finn Allen or Martin Guptill at the top, or Glenn Phillips down the order, the batters have hitting ability but Kane Williamson, I feel a slight bit of weakness. Other than that, I don't see any major problems. They are a very humble kind of decent unit."

Williamson has scored 204 runs at a strike rate of 121.42 in seven T20Is this year. He did not have a great 2021 either, having scored 298 runs at an average of 29.80 and a strike rate of 117.32 in 12 games.

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"Go one step further" - Aakash Chopra on the opportunities for New Zealand

New Zealand will hope to win a limited-overs World Cup for the first time.

Chopra pointed out that the T20 World Cup presents a great opportunity for New Zealand. He explained:

"They have opportunities. You have reached here, go one step further. You become the World Test champion but no one plays a lot of Test matches with you. You reach the World Cup final, the other teams play 35-40 matches, you play 25 matches in a year."

Chopra concluded by highlighting the financial difficulties faced by New Zealand cricket. He stated:

"When you offer a contract to a player, he says sorry and becomes a T20 free agent. They have a lot of problems, they are fighting an internal battle. So the opportunity is there to come together and show the world once again that Kiwis are a very different race. They know how to fight, they know how to win."

The likes of Trent Boult and Jimmy Neesham have turned down national team contracts. They have instead opted to play franchise cricket across the world.