“At the moment, we don’t really know what it is. We’ll sort that out tomorrow morning, and come up with a plan.”
Losing Mitchell would be another blow for the Black Caps’ stocks, with Glenn Phillips, Finn Allen, Tim Seifert, Lockie Ferguson, Adam Milne and Will O’Rourke already battling injuries over the course of the summer so far.
Depending on the severity of the injury, Mitchell could also be rested for the second and third games, as a means of letting him recover for the three-test series against the West Indies, beginning in Christchurch at the start of December.
Earlier, Mitchell had come to the wicket at 24/2, and survived a hat-trick ball to hold New Zealand’s innings together. The Black Caps’ No 4 took 61 balls to score his first 50 runs, but just 46 to reach his hundred – his seventh in ODIs, and first for more than two years.
And despite it being his seventh century in the format, it was just his second on Kiwi soil, as well as being the first at Hagley Oval, his adopted home ground after moving south from Northern Districts to Canterbury.
As a player who has become the lynchpin of the Black Caps’ batting order in 50 over cricket, Mitchell’s celebrations were just reward for a player who had to wait until his late 20s to play international cricket.
“It’s always nice to score hundreds for New Zealand,” he added. “To do it here at Hagley, my new home town for the last five years now, is pretty special.
“We show up to work here every day, in the winter, for training. It’s always nice to achieve milestones on your home ground.”
Even if he plays no further part in the rest of the series, Mitchell’s knock has gone a long way to helping the Black Caps lift the trophy in Hamilton next Saturday.
Should Mitchell be ruled out, Mark Chapman would likely take his place at No 4. While only from a sample size of four matches, Chapman does boast a batting average of 101.33 in ODIs this year, helped by a career-high score in Napier back in March.
And while that venue is coincidentally the Black Caps’ next venue, Mitchell says the team will take nothing for granted as they prepare for their first of two attempts to seal the series.
“As a group, it’s different conditions in Napier,” he concluded. “A different sized ground, a different surface. It’s [about] finding ways to adapt as quick as possible on that pitch.
“Hopefully we score one more run than them, that’d be nice.”
Alex Powell is a sports journalist for the NZ Herald. He has been a sports journalist since 2016.