Samuel Badree opened the bowling for the West Indies in last night's opening T20 at Eden Park. He's a legspinner from Trinidad and one of the lesser known West Indian players to New Zealand audiences.
But he's something of a New Zealand specialist. This was his fourth T20 here out of 11 appearances in the shortest form.
Sunil Narine was on for the sixth over with his baffling mix of spin, and left arm spinner Nikita Miller for the seventh.
So three of the first four bowlers used by captain Dwayne Bravo were spinners or, putting it another way, not seamers.
Badree beat Martin Guptill with a beauty first up; Narine's loosener was clumped inches short of six to extra cover by Jesse Ryder; Miller's first two balls kept Brendon McCullum quiet.
Badree's four overs cost 25 - a highly acceptable run concession for a slow bowler in T20 - while Miller took two for eight in his first two overs, before Colin Munro and McCullum clobbered 18 off his next one. Narine was clouted late on by Luke Ronchi, which can happen.
This is not about Badree, however, or Narine, or Miller, more the fact that spinners were seen as the best way to approach the New Zealand batsmen last night.
One of the seminal moments in ODI cricket came at the 1992 World Cup when Dipak Patel opened the bowling against Australia on that fabulous, sunlit day on the same ground to kick off perhaps the most memorable month of cricket in New Zealand.
Having a spinner open in tests - depending on the conditions - is relatively rare; in ODIs, it's now nothing new, so it should not surprise that it is used in the version of cricket which gives bowler and batsman the least time to get settled.
The T20 World Cup is due to be staged in Bangladesh in a couple of months - civil unrest and an International Cricket Council approval tick, due later this month, permitting. If teams don't recognise spin's importance there and tailor their selections and tactics accordingly, they don't know their business.
Based on last night - even though New Zealand rattled up 189 for five, their second highest T20 total against the tourists - expect the West Indies will not be short on spinners at the world tournament.
When they leave New Zealand this week, they'll still have five more T20s as preparation for the event, two against Ireland in Jamaica, three against England in Barbados.
New Zealand, whose attack in Bangladesh seems likely to have a seam/medium pace accent, plus offspin from Nathan McCullum and possibly Kane Williamson, have Wednesday night's match in Wellington as their last opportunity to iron out wrinkles.
Outside his friends, no one knew Michael Morton before he stuck up a mitt and caught a six at Hamilton last Wednesday, to trouser $100,000 courtesy of a Tui sponsorship.
Sections of the ground tipped to be the best six-catching spots were a sea of orange, the colour and design of T-shirt needed to be worn, along with taking a one-handed catch, to claim the money.
There's a cool $1 million put up by the sponsor over the limited-overs matches against the West Indies and India. Sponsorship gigs come and go, some hit, others miss. You'd have to say this one has been a hit. And that is a 'Yeah, right'.