Cricket: Black Caps keep faith with their bowlers

Sachin Tendulkar will be back at the wicket at the Basin Reserve. Photo / Hawke's Bay Today

New Zealand are preparing to stick with the bowling attack who took a flogging when the ODI series began in Napier this week for today's second match in Wellington.

India rattled up 273 for four in just 38 overs in winning the Napier match, with usually reliable operators such as Kyle Mills and Iain O'Brien well off their game.

But captain Dan Vettori is taking the view that Napier was an aberration.

"We are trying to find that balance between being tough on them and realising they have done a pretty good job for a while now," Vettori said yesterday. "I think they understand what went wrong and how to rectify it. So we hope Napier is an aberration but we need some guys to step up and replicate the form they've had previous to that game."

But even if the bowling attack is unchanged, there will be a new face in the New Zealand side today.

Northern Districts wicketkeeper Peter McGlashan will make his ODI debut, to go with a couple of Twenty20 matches in December 2006, after regular gloveman Brendon McCullum took a heavy blow on his right thumb in Napier. McCullum's thumb is badly bruised but he hopes to play as a specialist batsman.

He had a bat at practice yesterday and is likely to take his place opening the innings. That will mean one other batsman dropping out, most likely middle order player Neil Broom.

An ODI preceded by an injury worry for McCullum is becoming a common occurrence, but being, in Vettori's words, "a belligerent guy", Vettori's gut feeling was that McCullum would play.

"He seems to have a lot of fitness tests and comes through them all," Vettori said.

Should McCullum be ruled out, Martin Guptill will move up to open with Jesse Ryder. That should not unduly unsettle things, given Guptill's form since making his New Zealand debut against the West Indies in January.

In eight ODIs, starting with his unbeaten 122 against the Windies at Eden Park, Guptill has averaged 60.83 and got a good look at the Indian attack in hitting 64 at Napier.

McGlashan was a significant contributor to ND's winning the one-day State Shield this season, hitting 272 runs at 45.33. He appears to have overtaken Auckland's Gareth Hopkins as McCullum's backup.

Hopkins run production in the domestic one-day series was poorer than McGlashan's and that won't have helped his case.

New Zealand know they cannot afford another loss today. If they trail 0-2, winning three on the bounce against the Indians will be a tall order.

"You need to be 1-1 at this point, so we realise how important it is and we do have a little bit of a reputation of coming to Wellington and playing well, so we are confident we can bounce back quickly," Vettori said.

India's tendency to shuffle their batting order at short notice will not catch New Zealand off guard.

India's captain, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, bumped himself up to No 3 in Napier, and hit a run-a-ball 84 not out to steer the tourists towards their substantial total.

"Our bowling plan stays pretty similar no matter where a batsman comes in," said Vettori. "It is up to us to make sure we execute them and that is all I can ask of the bowlers. We know what we should be doing."

India are likely to field the same combination, unless young fast bowler Ishant Sharma is ruled fit to play after bruising his right shoulder on the same ground in the Twenty20 clash last week.