Cricket: Black Caps will have to conquer the desert heat

Black Caps captain Brendon McCullum, left, and BJ Watling. Photo / Getty Images

There's one foe New Zealand will only appease rather than beat on the eve of the three-test series against Pakistan in the United Arab Emirates - the sun.

Water and electrolyte drinks become precious currencies, shade provides prime real estate and shirts that billow with the onset of the slightest zephyr are haute couture.

New Zealand's test cricketers have embarked on a challenge which has proved daunting since the inaugural visit of their forebears in 1955.

Tours to play Pakistan have been subject to triumph (a series victory in 1969-70), tragedy (the cancelled tour due to the bombed hotel in 2002), folklore (Peter Petherick's hat-trick on debut in 1976) and humour (Bruce Murray running in from third man after getting struck by a banana at Dhaka in 1969, only to take a catch at fly slip which was given not out).

The common thread woven through each of these escapades has been temperature.

Sure, current players have the refuge of air-conditioned hotel rooms, but there's no escaping desert cauldrons, regardless of how you prepare.

One school of thought suggests an ice box at day's end and throughout the night can be counter-productive because it fights rather than assists the body's assimilation into the natural environment.

Clear skies and temperatures in the low 30s are forecast for the duration of the first test, which starts tonight (NZT). It's one thing to survive strolling around the UAE streets but hours bowling off the long run or batting in suffocating protection equipment is an altogether different proposition.

The dehydration process accelerates as salty sweat evaporates off the skin - it's the first step towards becoming a human raisin.

Tonight the current team, after just over a week to acclimatise, need to adapt to such adversity.

Andrew Alderson travelled to the UAE courtesy of Emirates.