KEY POINTS:
He may boast the impetuosity of youth but Ross Taylor seeks to temper expectations on his ability to solve New Zealand cricket's batting woes.
His audacious hitting in domestic cricket for Central Districts -- and his fleeting appearance for the Black Caps against the West Indies in March -- has seen the 22-year-old cast as a potential solution for a malfunctioning top order.
But Taylor, whose long-term goal is obviously World Cup selection, made a couple of salient points ahead of his return to international duty in Wellington's leg of a Twenty20 quinella tomorrow night against Sri Lanka.
Pessimistically, he is yet to face mesmerising spinner Muttiah Muralitharan and the last time he took guard against quirky speedster Lasith Malinga his stumps were splayed when playing for New Zealand A three years ago.
Still, regardless of those impediments the highly-rated right hander, who scored his maiden first class double hundred (217) against Otago earlier this month, is anxious to embrace a rare chance to test his mettle against Sri Lanka's dynamic duo at Westpac Stadium.
Although New Zealand's propensity to collapse at the crease is well documented, Taylor accepts his chance to impress has also been influenced by Scott Styris's back problems.
Taylor was called in as cover for the batting all rounder during the Champions Trophy in India last month. When Styris ruled himself out of the summer against Sri Lanka, his understudy was an obvious choice to stake a claim in the five-match one-day series -- and the remainder of a congested build-up to the Caribbean.
Fortunately the transition from four-day domestic cricket to a 20-over a side slogathon should not be too difficult for a right hander whose byword is aggression.
Taylor played twice against the West Indies in Napier and Auckland, scoring 46 runs at a strike rate of 117.94.
Off the combined 39 balls he faced, nine were dispatched to the fences at either McLean or Eden Park.
And although there is plenty riding on his performance from a personal and team point of view, Taylor vowed he would stay true to his crowd-pleasing strokeplay.
"I'll go out there and express myself," he said.
"You try and calm that (public expectation) down a little bit, you hear what's been said... but I enjoy going out and playing shots. If that appeals to a lot of people so be it -- it's good for me, and New Zealand cricket."
Taylor trained for the first time with the team yesterday and although his international career is in its formative stages, he showed no nerves among the old hands.
"It's not foreign to me, the environment. All the boys are mates. I've played a few games with them so it's going to be just another game really."
Bravado aside, facing Muralitharan and renewing Malinga's acquaintance has got the nerves jangling.
"The good thing is they can only bowl four overs (each)," Taylor laughed.
"It should be an interesting confrontation. Malinga clean bowled me last time though I'd like to think I'm a better player than I was back then.
"I don't know whether his action's still the same but he's still going to be hard to pick up."
While Taylor didn't witness Malinga bag seven wickets during Sri Lanka's 217-run win at the Basin Reserve earlier this week, plenty of his confused team-mates did and they are approaching a rematch with the round-arm bowler with some trepidation.
Batsmen often lost track of the ball's trajectory when Malinga slung it directly in front of the umpire and their problems were compounded by the fact he is clocking up to 150km/h on the speed gun.
Skipper Stephen Fleming, who was caught at the wicket off Malinga in both innings at the Basin neatly summed up New Zealand's pre-Christmas wish list: "We hope the white ball is clearer to see."
- NZPA
