Cricket: Bowling blues send selectors back to drawing board

By RICHARD BOOCK

Oh well, back to the drawing board.

New Zealand's second consecutive series defeat to Zimbabwe has left the New Zealand cricket management team reassessing their strategies and maybe even the composition of the side for the upcoming tours from Sri Lanka and Pakistan.

Despite all good intentions, New Zealand's experimental bowling attack again proved fragile under pressure.

It seems likely to become the No 1 topic of discussion for the selectors during the weeks leading up to the next two visitors' arrival.

Sri Lanka arrive at the end of the month to play five one-day internationals between February 1 and 11, and are immediately followed by Pakistan, who will contest a series comprising five ODIs and three tests.

"We've got to go back and review all three one-dayers against Zimbabwe," coach David Trist said yesterday.

"The biggest problem was the difficulties in the middle stages of the chase, especially with the lack of pace [in our attack].

"It made things increasingly difficult for Stephen Fleming to contain a couple of their batsmen, and things got away from us."

The encouraging news for Trist, who has lost his entire frontline bowling attack this season, is that star spin bowler Daniel Vettori may be available for one of the approaching series. "We're all hopeful of having Daniel back," he said.

"We're really missing him right now, but the news is apparently positive and we'll just to wait and see.

"We still have to make sure that when he does come back, he's ready - which might be a fairly tough call."

On top of that, the selectors will almost certainly be without allrounder Chris Cairns, who is facing a likely operation.

They are also resigned to not having the injured Dion Nash and Geoff Allott.