Cricket: Moment of truth for NZ

By Richard Boock

ALEXANDRA - The New Zealand cricketers are likely to find out as much about themselves as South Africa when the one-day series begins in Dunedin tomorrow.

Whether they have actually improved out of sight, or whether India were just plain awful in the recent series is one of the burning questions still to be answered, as is the one involving the New Zealand top-order batting - and, for that matter, the pace attack as well.

Another poser is whether opening batsman Nathan Astle, with scores of 1, 0, 1, 29 and 18 in five ODIs against South Africa, can survive the twin new-ball threat of Allan Donald and Shaun Pollock, who will be operating tomorrow on a Carisbrook pitch which promises to be hard and fast.

And perhaps New Zealand will also find out more about their theory of quelling aggressive batting within the first 15 overs through the use of genuine strike-bowlers.

Wily one-day exponent Chris Harris said yesterday that the strategy appeared to be effective when opposition batsmen went for their shots while the fielding restrictions were still in place.

"South Africa are a team who tend to go for a high strike-rate early-on," Harris said. "So it makes sense to use some of your most attacking bowlers to get rid of them.

"It wasn't always like that, I know, but the game's evolving all the time and this is one way to counter the flying start."

South Africa, who have a blow-out against the BIL Academy side at Molyneux Park today, are likely to field one of their strongest line-ups at Carisbrook, with discussions over the ball dictating much of their batting strategy.

The tourists believe the Kookaburra ball which will be used in this Bank of New Zealand Series, does not move around as much as the Duke variety, which is used in South Africa and England.

The suggestion yesterday was that this may prompt South Africa to promote Lance Klusener or Pat Symcox as pinch-hitters.

New Zealand: Dion Nash (captain), Nathan Astle, Matthew Horne, Craig McMillan, Roger Twose, Chris Cairns, Chris Harris, Adam Parore, Gavin Larsen, Daniel Vettori, Simon Doull, Geoff Allott (one to be omitted).