Blackcaps batting hero Martin Guptill has fully recovered from heat exhaustion, after his matchwinning knock against Scotland, and will be available to face Namibia at the T20 World Cup on Friday.
New Zealand took another step towards the tournament semi-finals with a hard-fought victory over the Scots and must now overcome the African side - who also progressed through qualifying - to keep their hopes alive.
Guptill was instrumental to the result, stroking 93 runs off 56 balls, before succumbing to the Dubai heat more than a wily Scottish bowling attack.
The opener lost 4.5kg in bodyweight during his 92-minute innings and admitted to feeling "pretty cooked" afterwards.
New Zealand opened its campaign with night games against Pakistan and India, and may have been caught on the backfoot in their first daytime outing, but coach Gary Stead says his kingpin has recovered well and will likely face Namibia at Sharjah.
"The hottest part of the day is between 11am-3pm, so when we're batting there and Gup was running between wickets, and also had the blow on his foot a couple of games back... it all compounded together," he says.
"But it was a really important innings for us and Martin played beautifully out there. He scrubbed up well today and will certainly be available for us tomorrow, as will everyone else in the squad."
Given the must-win nature of World Cup pool play, Stead has ruled out the notion of resting and rotating players against the lower-ranked sides, despite a looming showdown against dangerous Afghanistan in two days.
"The way we've trained and conditioned the guys is to handle this period of time," he says. "Part of our warm-up schedule was playing three games in five days to get the guys tested and ready, and into that frame of mind for the backend of the tournament."
Join us at 11pm Friday for live updates of the Blackcaps v Namibia T20 World Cup clash
