Cricket: Black Caps call on services of Cairns

New Zealand is using one Cairns for the world Twenty20 champs beginning in England next month.

Not Cairns, Christopher, but Cairns, Queensland, as those not involved with the Indian Premier League or county cricket seek some outdoor practice.

Yesterday Martin Guptill, Neil Broom, Brendon Diamanti and Nathan McCullum flew out for the Tropic of Capricorn, taking bowling coach and native Queenslander Shane Jurgensen.

Those four had been forced indoors for most of the past few weeks and New Zealand Cricket were keen to give the entire Twenty20 squad access to outdoor facilities ahead of the world champs.

Iain O'Brien and James Franklin are playing county cricket while Peter McGlashan and Ian Butler are also in the UK. The remaining members of the squad are playing in the IPL.

Team manager Dave Currie said the Black Caps were "pretty serious about this tournament" and had arranged to go into camp at a private cricket ground in Oxfordshire, with the players arriving in staggered bunches from Monday week.

Unofficial warm-up matches have been arranged with the Netherlands, West Indies and a composite side before their official two-match warm-up programme against India and Australia on June 1 and 2. New Zealand start their tournament proper with a match against Scotland at The Oval on June 6.

The IPL players are expected to arrive in dribs and drabs from May 21 onwards.

Asked whether any thought had been given to pulling some players with heavy workloads out of the tournament early, as Australia planned, Currie said: "No, not really. There can't be any better preparation for a Twenty20 tournament than playing it. The coaches believe white-hot intensity before a tournament will be good. We will manage their workloads once they get to the UK."

Currie said most of the New Zealand players at the IPL had not had a great deal of work (in Kyle Mills' case, none).

However, those who had, such as Brendon McCullum (eight matches to date) and to a lesser extent Dan Vettori, Jacob Oram (five each), Ross Taylor and Jesse Ryder (four each) would be monitored from when they arrived at camp.

Coach Andy Moles has spent the past three weeks in South Africa.

His mission has been to look for trends in Twenty20 and to scout out the opposition.