Cricket: Ryder keen to keep improving

Recuperating cricketer Jesse Ryder will be touching base with New Zealand Cricket in the next few days to plot the next phase of his recovery from abdominal surgery.

Ryder's manager, Aaron Klee, today said the 25-year-old had bounced back quicker than expected from the surgery reinforcing his abdominal wall, an area which has caused him trouble since last September when he was injured at the Champions Trophy in South Africa.

Ryder turned out for his Wellington club Naenae Old Boys against Karori last Saturday, when he scored 11 with the bat, then grabbed the ball and conceded 10 runs off 11 overs of medium pace.

"He's a week ahead of his plans, he was feeling good about his body and where he was at, so he had a little bowl and it was perfectly fine," Klee told NZPA today.

"There was absolutely no pain or problems with and he felt 100 percent the next morning. It's been a remarkable turnaround since he had the surgery a few weeks ago."

Ryder will play the second day of his club game this coming Saturday before looking hard at playing for Wellington at the end of the month in a Plunket Shield four-day match.

"We'll have a talk to New Zealand Cricket and find out where we can go with this from here," Klee said. "Obviously he's ahead of the schedule that had been mapped out. We just need to talk to them and see if we can progress things even further.

"They want to get some strength testing done, and that's probably going to give us a really good measure of where he's at."

Klee said Ryder had been training hard all the way through summer, with his only real restriction on doing sprinting.

"He's basically been batting since December, so it's not like he's been sitting around doing nothing for six months.

"He took it to another level (on Saturday) which probably surprised a few people, but there was no issue with it.

" Ryder has been included in the 30-man extended Black Caps squad for the Twenty20 World Cup later subject to proving his fitness.