"Feeling strong": New Zealand's Glenn Phillips cautious about international return

New Delhi [India], November 12 : New Zealand all-rounder Glenn Phillips is feeling "strong" and has resumed training, but remains cautious about returning to top-flight cricket from a long injury layoff.
The 28-year-old sustained a groin injury while representing Washington Freedom in the Major League Cricket (MLC) final in July earlier this year. Phillips had suffered a similar injury while playing in the IPL for the Gujarat Titans.
"Yeah, obviously, when you do both groins the rehab and recovery is a little bit longer, so I guess things are coming along really nicely. I'm feeling really strong and now it's just about loading it up and getting ready to play at some stage," Phillips said as quoted from ESPNcricinfo.
Phillips was sidelined from the Zimbabwe tour and the home series against Australia, England, and the West Indies. Due to the injury, he also missed the Caribbean Premier League (CPL), where he was set to represent Guyana Amazon Warriors.
Since then, Phillips has returned to his domestic team, the Otago Volts and trained with them. Most recently, he was part of the New Zealand team in the lead-up to the fifth T20I against the West Indies in Dunedin, which is scheduled to begin on Thursday.
"Obviously, we would always like to be back sooner rather than later, but at the end of the day it's really just around the loading side of things. Once my leg has been loaded enough to be able to perform the way that I do in the field is the main thing. I guess it comes down to if I give everything 100 per cent and if at 100 per cent. I'm a little bit weak then we're not ready to go, so we'll just wait until that stage," he said.
Phillips hinted at the prospect of testing his fitness in the domestic circuit before joining the New Zealand camp.
"At this stage, no date in mind, we're just seeing things as we go, and I'd imagine it'll be for Otago before coming back to the Black Caps side of things. You definitely need to test things in an environment before going to the international scene. Obviously, when you play in international cricket, you're required to give as much as you possibly can in each game, and until I'm ready to do that, we'll keep loading as we go," Phillips said.
"Yeah, well that [Plunket Shield] will be the hope, but as we said, it's very much around where my leg is at that point in time. We're moving strong and we're moving in the right direction, but yeah we just need that time on the feet and the time doing the actual fielding, loading to get it right and make sure that there's no risk of getting injured again in the game," he added.