Cricket: Bond helps Oram back to fitness

Returning allrounder Jacob Oram was a first-hand witness to Shane Bond's tentative steps back into international cricket on the New Zealand XI tour to Brisbane recently and professed himself impressed.

As for his own return to the bowling crease he was not as flattering.

"I'm pretty close to putting full effort in but it's not coming out at anywhere near full pace," Oram said.

"It's a bit frustrating at the moment but I guess it's always going to be like that after four months off. You run in just as hard, you think you're putting as much effort in and you want to do a good job for your team but it's not coming out as I would like. It does get a bit infuriating."

Oram, who has not played a test since the Adelaide Oval last year, bowled only seven overs in match play in Brisbane but spent significant time in the outdoor nets at the close of play refining his action and searching for that elusive rhythm.

"I felt in a couple of games when it was touch and go, that I didn't want to give myself the ball and possibly sway the result just because I wanted to bowl a few overs."

Oram has been bending the ear of Bond, who has been through the same process many times over and he told him that he needed a month or two outdoors before things would start clicking into place.

"He [Bond] even admitted he was a little bit rusty at the start of the Aussie tour but by the end he was hitting somewhere near top pace which is great news for New Zealand cricket. He's not at 150km/h yet which is where he wants to be and is capable of bowling but he was easily the fastest bowler on show and is going to keep improving."

New Zealand depart for Zimbabwe on Monday via a couple of warm-up matches in Namibia.

Oram is hoping to use the the tour to claim back the number one allrounder spot in the New Zealand set-up, a spot he vacated to the likes of Nathan Astle and Daniel Vettori in the home series against Australia.

It hasn't been the sort of tour where previews have centred around cricket. Rather it has been about legislation, human rights, ICC contracts and all manner of financial repercussions.

But, as unconscionable as many might find it, if you look at the trip to Zimbabwe in purely cricketing terms, it shapes as far more important than a few games against the weakest cricketing nation in the test-playing world.

Aside from measuring the progress of Oram's recovery, there is the opportunity to get Bond bowling again in a test for the first time since May of 2003.

It might also be a watershed tour for the openers.

Michael Papps has sorted out a few technical deficiencies over the winter and is highly regarded by John Bracewell.

Incumbents James Marshall and Craig Cumming will need to answer with sheer weight of runs. Marshall looked assured against Sri Lanka but Cumming ended the season poorly after a good start against Australia.

One good score, too, would push Stephen Fleming beyond the 6000 test runs mark, the first New Zealander to achieve that. He now stands on 5912.

A mere 37 more runs and he will pass Richie Richardson on the list of most prolific batsmen in test cricket, moving up to 40th.

- HERALD ON SUNDAY