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LONDON - New Zealand paceman Chris Martin offered the England cricketers some friendly advice today - don't believe your own press.
The spearhead of the tourists' attack thanked the large British media contingent for applying the pressure to the hosts who carry the hot favourite's tag into Thursday's first test at Lord's.
"Maybe they read the papers a bit more than they should. There's a lot of media hype to bring the English team up, that they should really stamp on us and destroy us," Martin said.
"That's probably something that they feel if they're not doing it, then that hype has been over-extended and they start to feel the pressure a bit more.
"I suppose you guys (media) are doing us a favour in some ways, so that's good."
Martin was having nothing of suggestions of a mismatch, saying New Zealand learned valuable lessons from the recent series which England won 2-1.
Top of the list was that England weren't yet a world force to be feared, even on their home patch.
"That they're just a steady side and on their day they can be a very good side. We're in a similar vein.
"I know that over the years New Zealand and England have had some pretty good battles, especially over here."
Four years ago, Michael Vaughan's side won the series 3-0 as New Zealand competed strongly for the first three days of each test but couldn't apply pressure to England's run chases.
The just-completed series was another one of missed opportunities for the Black Caps who shocked England with a win in Hamilton then were mesmerised by paceman Ryan Sidebottom to lose the next two.
"We competed well for 85-90 per cent of the time, and when we did falter we faltered badly," Martin said.
"As a bowling unit we learned a lot about their batting outfit, and that we had the capability and skill to take 20 wickets against these guys.
"With the amount of talk about all their guys that average over 40, it was quite a big step for us."
Barring accidents, Martin will lead an attack comprising Kyle Mills, Tim Southee, Jacob Oram and Daniel Vettori who all had their moments in the home series.
On tour so far it's been steady enough, with Martin taking six for 134 and Southee five for 148 for the match against England A at Southampton in their final shakedown.
Making amends for the past two series is a priority for Martin, who took 11 wickets at 34.90 in the home tests to take his career record to 136 wickets from 40 tests at 32.66.
In 2004 he led the pace attack in the absence of the injured Shane Bond, but the bowlers generally struggled.
"As a bowling outfit we were very poor. If you look at those fourth innings totals they were chasing we didn't bowl that well.
"As a group we let ourselves down. There's normally a bowler who can carry a group but I don't think we had that last time.
"Hopefully we all help each other out and get a bit more a pack mentality."
The batting, with a youthful look including debutants Aaron Redmond and Daniel Flynn, is more of a concern as Sidebottom targets another man of the series performance.
Martin said the presence of Redmond, who scored 361 runs at 60.17 in the warmup matches, had boosted their confidence and taken some of the heat off in the test buildup.
- NZPA
