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| November 29, 2003 | Saturday | Shawwal 4, 1424 |
‘It is difficult to predict with second team’
LAHORE, Nov 28: New Zealand captain Chris Cairns acknowledged on Friday that he has not set any particular target to achieve in the forthcoming five One-day International series against Pakistan starting from Saturday.
“Obviously, we have some targets but we are here with the second team and it is difficult to predict. Yet the tour provides ideal opportunity for our youngsters to get international exposure”, Cairns said while addressing a press conference.
The Kiwis arrived on Friday and Cairs will be leading his country for a full-fledged tour for the first time. He replaced injured regular skipper Stephen Fleming.
Cairns said that his team comprised mostly youngsters without any international experience but as they came from a proper system they had the ability to perform.
The exeperienced all-rounder accepted that the ODI series was a challenging one for him if he considered the strength of the side having seven players who have never played a ODI or Test match.
He did not agree that the performance of New Zealand was not satisfactory during the last tour of India. “If you compare that tour to all the previous tours of New Zealand to India, the last performance was quite satisfactory,” Cairns stressed.
Injury-prone Cairns said that the team did well in the Test series but its performance was inconsistent in the ODIs and added this tour would be helpful in improving players skill in this version of the sport.
New Zealand skipper dispelled the impression that a long journey before the start of the series could have negative effect on the team’s performances.
“We have a good team management and further more long journeys, playing of Test after the One-dayer and vice versa are all now the part of the modern cricket and a better team management can cope with these problems”, he said.
Cairns said that the Pakistan team’s strength was its pace attack and the experienced middle-order while his side had a balance bowling attack but lacking depth in batting.
Cairns admitted that his performance was not exemplary in the past, mainly due to fitness problems, but added he accepted the captaincy, for the first time, as a challenge.
New Zealand coach Ashley Ross said new cricketers inducted in the team after the World Cup-2003 had performed creditably and added his side had good team management.
New Zealand Cricket (NZC) chief executive Mark Snedden did not agree that Black Caps would have been an unpopular side by refusing to tour Pakistan.
“No, Australia and the West Indies have refused to visit Pakistan and PCB had to organise their series at neutral venues. South Africa also visited Pakistan after getting assurances about their security, therefore, you can’t blame New Zealand,” Snedden said.
Snedden said that it was not unfair of offering a chance to the players to decide about Pakistan’s tour.
“Most of the players had seen the suicide bombing near the hotel at Karachi in their last tour and we believe not to enforce the tour on them.”
NZC chief said that the response of Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) for the concerns showed by his board over the security aspect was excellent and that paved the way for the tour and supported the International Cricket Council (ICC) for forming a committee to decide whether a tour of any country was possible or not due to security reason.
New Zealand (from): Chris Cairns (captain), Tama Canning, Craig Cumming, Chris Harris, Paul Hitchock, Richard Jones, Hamish Marshall, Michael Mason, Brendon McCullum, Jacob Oram, Matthew Sinclair, Daryl Tuffey, Daniel Vettori (vice-captain), Matthew Walker, Kerry Walmsley.
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