Adam Parore: Relax first, find some confidence, then attack

The New Zealand cricketers need to relax before the test series against Australia begins.

If you have been watching their faces and body language over the past week as they have been getting pummelled in the one-dayers, the heads are down and they look as if they are hating every moment.

Wrong. It's important to remember the bottom line: it's just a game. They need to start having fun.

It sounds a case of easier said than done. But consider they are playing the world's best team, which contains by my count seven players who are greats of the game, and would be irrespective of which generation they were playing in.

Captain Ricky Ponting, openers Matthew Hayden and Justin Langer (20-odd test hundreds), wicketkeeper Adam Gilchrist and bowlers Glenn McGrath, Shane Warne and - for his express pace as well as his wicket-taking rate - Brett Lee are fit to be labelled great players in my book.

New Zealand's players must look on this as a terrific challenge, pitting themselves against the best. You get knocked down one day, get up and scrap away again the next.

Given a choice between playing, say, Sri Lanka, India, the West Indies or Australia, I know who I'd pick every time.

I don't have a stack of memories from my international career. Many games merge in my mind. But those I do remember almost exclusively involved battles against Australia.

It should be a privilege playing them. Our players - although they mightn't think it right now - are lucky to be doing it. Australia are playing the game at a consistently higher level than it has ever been played.

The way you go about picking yourselves up is in the field. It's hard when you're batting. You're one against 11. In the field you've got your mates around you. It's strength in numbers.

In my day I went looking to people like Dion Nash, who would always be looking to get stuck into somebody.

The idea is to get something going out there and wait for the boys to pull in behind.

Craig McMillan was another. We'd pair up and try to make something happen.

Sometimes it can be a brilliant catch, or a clever piece of fielding, and suddenly you bring everyone else into the game. It's a great way to give the young guys confidence, and that's what counts - making sure they have confidence so that when they get isolated out there they have something to draw on.

Which brings me to the XI for the first test in Christchurch. The selectors could approach it in two ways: stack the batting and somehow try to last the distance; or roll the sleeves up, pick all the bowlers and have a real go at the Aussies.

I'd go for the latter. We could put nine batsmen in the test and they'll still knock us over. A draw is simply not on the table. I'd try to attack them.

Offspinner Paul Wiseman must play because at some point Daniel Vettori is going to blow up if his workload is not managed. You can feel it coming.

Wiseman has done well against the Australians, he's an older head and Vettori needs the support.

I've never seen Iain O'Brien bowl, but John Bracewell and Stephen Fleming have, and they must have noted something they like. We need three fast-medium bowlers, and the absence of the injured Jacob Oram or Chris Cairns as third seamer is glaringly apparent now.

So a batsman must miss out. Reluctantly I'd let Lou Vincent go even though he's in good form and that's when players should be picked.

Finally, the issue of Lee and his beamers.

I'd be surprised - and I know Lee pretty well as a result of a few battles over the years - if his delivery to Brendon McCullum at Eden Park in last weekend's ODI was deliberate.

It is simply not his style. I suspect his problem is not the hand release, but his foot slipping at the moment of delivery. It's more complicated than space allows here, but in a nutshell there's more to it than merely letting the ball go at the wrong moment.

Yes, he's got a bit of a record for it, but to be fair, when he let Pakistani Abdul Razzaq have one in Australia during the one-day finals earlier in the season, Razzaq had bowled two at him.

If I'd been Lee I'd have given him one back as well. It's the law of the jungle - if you're going to dish it out, expect to get it back with interest.

My solution? A yellow card-type approach. Each beamer bowled cops a yellow. You get one freebie, then you are on notice. Two in three games and the bowler is either suspended from bowling in that innings (open to abuse - think about it) or get a one-match ban. It would stop pretty quickly.

Adam Parore is a former New Zealand wicketkeeper.