New Zealand await some sunshine amidst the gloom

Kane Williamson is smiling. Seated in the press conference room by the Chinnaswamy Stadium, he's just answered the big, burning question of the hour.

Is everyone fit coming into this game against Sri Lanka?

"Yeah, probably the first time we've had a fully fit squad, although obviously we had to rule a player out in Matt Henry," he answers with a usual straight face. "But yeah, I believe everybody's fit coming into this one.

"Or fit-ish," he quickly adds with a smile.

It's not often that Williamson smiles in the middle of his sentences. He's usually poker-faced as he deliberates on a question, his eventual answers giving away little.

Only this time, Williamson was clear. Or clear-ish. And the rare smile he flashed after his answer had a story to tell; the story of how New Zealand's tournament has been a conveyor belt of injuries. The narrative has been so mind-boggling that Williamson injured himself in the very game he was making a comeback in. It was an ill-directed throw from Najmul Hossain Shanto that injured the New Zealand captain but his hand was in the imperfect place at the imperfect time.

And that's pretty much been the story for New Zealand. Little surprise then that they've gone in unchanged in just the one game this tournament, and it hasn't been by choice.

Williamson was "not quite ready" for the first couple of matches owing to a sore right knee before a left thumb fracture ruled him out of another four games. Lockie Ferguson's campaign has been a sandwich, with five games punctuated by injuries on either end. Mark Chapman missed a couple of games with a calf niggle and Tim Southee has only played a couple thanks to a fractured thumb. Jimmy Neesham and Matt Henry left Mumbai with injuries; while Neesham has been cooling off his right wrist since then, the cruel right hamstring for Henry arrived with return tickets to Christchurch.

So for most of their time in India, New Zealand have been dealing with one contingency after another. And it seems now that they have started to weigh heavy on the side, which has gone from winning everything to winning nothing, for four games in a row now.

Lo and behold, there's some more contingency that awaits New Zealand before their last league match. The weather in Bengaluru is wet; the radar suggests it's going to be wetter on the day of the match, and it isn't good news. New Zealand need two points from this game otherwise too much will be out of their hands. Not that it isn't at the moment but they would rather not have it worse.

What New Zealand will do is solve problems. It might sound like one of Williamson's dry responses at a press conference but it's what the Black Caps have been doing all tournament. That they are still relevant in the tournament with just over a week's cricket left says a lot about how they have dealt with crises, whether it was making a captain out of someone who isn't quite first-choice back home or keeping hope that the injuries will heal while the World Cup is still on.

"There are lots of things that we can't control and the weather is one of those," Williamson said ahead of the Sri Lanka fixture. "There's been a lot of weather around and it could look different tomorrow. So, we'll just have to play what's in front of us and focus on our skills as a batting and bowling unit, whether that's looking to be aggressive or trying to handle some death overs as well as we can. Or with the bat, assessing conditions and trying to do the job and building those partnerships.

"But at the end of the day, our focus will be on the cricket that we want to play and trying to put all our focus and energy into that. That gives us the best chance of putting out a good performance. And so that'll be what we try and do."

When he takes the field against Sri Lanka, he will hope that there are more things to smile about than just the injury predicament.