Wellington, March 13: Captain Brendon McCullum says New Zealand will bowl first if he wins the toss in the second cricket test against England which starts Thursday at the Basin Reserve.
Captains rarely decide so far out from a test match how they might respond to winning the toss, nor do they tend to share that information freely if they have decided.
Test pitches often change in appearance, at least incrementally, in the last hours of their preparation after being shaved or rolled for the final time or if overnight moisture has had any effect.
But McCullum was adamant Wednesday that New Zealand's best chance of winning the match will be to follow the formula of the first test in Dunedin when it won the toss, bowled and dismissed England for 167.
New Zealand also has an instinctive aversion to batting first, particularly after winning the toss and making that choice in the first test against South Africa at Cape Town last year when it was bowled out before lunch before 45.
Cricket wisdom holds that batting first is the positive and assertive thing to do, giving the team winning the toss the chance to take control of the match from the opening day.
But New Zealand sees its bowling attack as being a more potent weapon on the opening day of a match than its batting and McCullum will give his swing bowlers another change to set the tone in the match as they did at Dunedin, although the match was drawn.
After bowling out England for 167, New Zealand established a 293-run first-innings lead and was the dominant team until the middle of the fourth day, when England batted the match to a draw. The pitch at the University Oval became more docile as the match progressed, working against a result as almost 900 runs were scored in the last two innings.
England captain Alastair Cook says his side will take heart from its late effort.
"I think we have some confidence after that fightback," Cook said. "For the first couple of days we were put under pressure and to respond with the bat like we did was excellent from the team.
"It certainly shows that if you're not quite on it, even if it's just the first two batters playing a soft shot, that can transfer on to the rest of the team."
The pitch at the Basin Reserve is regarded as New Zealand's best for test cricket, offering both more pace and bounce than the one at the University Oval. It also, traditionally, produces plenty of runs and that may work against a result in the second match of the three-test series.
England wicketkeeper Matt Prior has insisted there will be no repeat of England's lax batting performance from the first innings at Dunedin. Prior said the much more determined batting of the second innings had set up England for a better performance in Wellington.
"That first innings was the worst I've ever been involved in," Prior said. "It was horrendous and we were all honest and big enough to put our hands up and say we can't keep on playing like that.
McCullum has reasoned that New Zealand's best chance might still be to bowl first and to hope the England top order again struggles against the swinging ball on the first day.
"I think if there's any advantage it's normally on day one," McCullum said. "I think that's probably a trend to New Zealand pitches at the moment so there's been some huge runs scored domestically, even on wickets that are four, five or six matches old.
"I wouldn't expect this one to break up a great deal. But I guess if you cop a decent swinging day then you can knock off the top (order) reasonably quickly as well."
Weather conditions for the first three days of the match are not likely to ideal for swing bowling. Fine, mild conditions are expected with only a little of the wind for which Wellington and the Basin Reserve are famous. Still, the New Zealand bowling attack excelled in similar conditions in Dunedin and will bowl with confidence if New Zealand wins the toss.
New Zealand has named the same lineup that played at Dunedin with seamers Tim Southee, Trent Boult and Neil Wagner sharing the workload with left-arm spinner Bruce Martin.
"I think they obviously performed really well for us in the last game and we hope that they'll do the same job in this one," McCullum said. "We've got the bowlers to be able to take 20 wickets and to be able to put the same pressure on their batting line-up as well and we've just got to make sure that we execute and if we do that we are going to give ourselves the best opportunity."
England's main concern surrounds the fitness of Kevin Pietersen who has a knee injury and looked uncomfortable at the crease in both innings in Dunedin.
