Cricket: Bond lines up extra game in race for test action

Shane Bond eyes a return to test cricket. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Shane Bond will step off the plane from the United Arab Emirates and walk straight into Canterbury colours in a bid to be selected for the first test team to play Pakistan on November 24.

Bond has made a successful return to the one-day and Twenty20 teams but is desperate to play in the highest form of the game.

New Zealand will not risk Bond in the first test at Dunedin off the back of one-day and Twenty20 cricket so has been told to play either for Canterbury against Otago starting on November 17, or New Zealand A against the tourists on November 18.

New Zealand return from the United Arab Emirates on the 16th.

Bond will almost certainly play for Canterbury.

"He's got the opportunity to play in a four-day game but that's probably a day after stepping off the plane after being in Dubai," Vettori said. "Whether that's the best thing to do or not, Shane is the best judge of that."

A test attack including Bond is undoubtedly an upgrade on what New Zealand have had in the past two seasons.

Last season the limitations were obvious when the home side failed to deliver a knock-out blow to the fickle West Indians, the low point coming when lower order hitter Jerome Taylor smote a century at University Oval, Dunedin, perhaps the most un-Caribbean test venue in the world.

If Bond was to be included in the first test, he would likely share the new ball with Chris Martin, with Iain O'Brien bowling first change.

Kyle Mills, Daryl Tuffey and James Franklin would be vying for the fourth seamer spot, with only one spinner, Vettori, likely to get a look-in before Christmas.