Cricket: Vettori has big plans for pacemen

Watch out for a variation on New Zealand's middle-innings squeeze in today's opening one-dayer against Sri Lanka.


New Zealand have long prided themselves on their defence through the middle of the innings, producing such effective bowling combinations as Gavin Larsen and Chris Harris, Harris and Daniel Vettori, and more lately Vettori and Scott Styris.


But stand-in skipper Vettori suggested yesterday that his team may need to make some strategic adjustments in today's contest, in order to counter Sri Lanka's strong early batting.


Unlike teams such as Australia and Pakistan, Sri Lanka do not quite pack the same batting punch in the death overs, but tend to compensate with a high yield earlier on.


Vettori said the different shape to the Sri Lankan batting could force him to shuffle his bowlers around more in the middle stages, and to bring back his pacemen for extra spells.


"Probably the dominance Scotty and myself had in the Australian series is not going to happen against these guys because they do play slow bowling well," he said yesterday.


"I imagine our seamers will play a more dominating role. There will be times when guys like Shane Bond, Kyle Mills and Jacob Oram can come back and attack and hopefully pick up a wicket in the middle stages.


"Their batsmen are adept at playing myself and Scotty so the role that we perform in the 20-40 over period may be not so effective.


"It's something to look at, especially in Queenstown where the pitch has a bit of pace in it."


The series is shaping as a crucial one for New Zealand in terms of developing fresh talent and gaining automatic entry for next year's Champions Trophy, but Vettori sounded anything but fazed by the assignment.


The left-arm spinner took over the captaincy when Fleming was ruled out of the Chappell-Hadlee one-dayers, and was back in the job this week after his skipper returned to Wellington to be at the birth of his daughter.


"The fact that I had a chance to captain the squad in the last series makes me a little more comfortable, and probably the team as well.


"In terms of the one-day rankings, this has the makings of a pretty good series, but - on our home turf playing against a sub-continent team - we do have some confidence we can get on top of them."


New Zealand have a slightly more vulnerable look to their batting line-up without Fleming, Nathan Astle and Craig McMillan and much responsibility will rest on the shoulders of the in-form Styris.


Coach John Bracewell has already confirmed that he intends playing both his rookie batsmen (Jamie How and Peter Fulton), and No 5 Hamish Marshall has been hopelessly out of form.


Vettori said it had been important to avoid over-complicating things for How and Fulton, who he said needed to feel comfortable enough to "go out there and play their natural games".


"We don't want to put too much in their heads," he said. "We can talk about guys like Chaminda Vaas and Muttiah Muralitharan but it's just as important for Jamie and Pete to go out there and do what they've always done."


Vettori said he had a huge amount of respect for the Sri Lankan team.


The side was full of extremely competent one-day exponents, and that any team with Muralitharan and Sanath Jayasuriya would be hard to beat.


"Murali is huge - just look at the stats he's put up against us. He's an amazing bowler, one of the best ever."


* New Zealand last night omitted James Franklin from their squad of 13, leaving Nathan Astle the likely supersub candidate.



The squad
* New Zealand: Daniel Vettori (c), Jamie How, Lou Vincent, Peter Fulton, Scott Styris, Hamish Marshall, Chris Cairns, Jacob Oram, Brendon McCullum, Kyle Mills, Shane Bond, Nathan Astle.
* Sri Lanka: Marvan Atapattu (c), Chaminda Vaas (v-c), Sanath Jayasuriya, Mahela Jayawardene, Kumar Sangakkara, Tillakaratne Dilshan, Upul Tharanga, Farveez Maharoof, Muttiah Muralitharan, Avishka Gunawardene, Lasith Malinga, Malinga Bandara, Jehan Mubarak, Russel Arnold, Ruchira Perera, Dilhara Fernando.