Cricket: Black Caps attack looks vulnerable

JOHANNESBURG - New Zealand are facing a couple of familiar old problems as they begin their formal preparations for the first test against South Africa - the batting and bowling.

Fresh from their whitewash of the West Indies, the New Zealanders came face to face with the reality of a sterner challenge this week, scrambling to a draw against the Rest of South Africa at Benoni's Willowmoore Park.

The four-day match was expected to provide the tourists with a chance to move on from this summer's success at home, but it instead fuelled concerns over the batting line-up's glass-jaw, and raised more questions over the bowling attack.

New Zealand struggled to dismiss the South African side and conceded three centuries to different opposition batsmen over the course of the match, the latest a well-organised and unbeaten 144 from fringe test player Justin Ontong.

Ontong had helped push his team's second innings total through to 270 for eight - a lead of 293 when the bad light that initially delayed play turned into thick drizzle, and forced the umpires to call off the game.

With key fast-bowler Shane Bond still on the doubtful list after hurting a knee, New Zealand's attack could be exposed against a South African line-up that's desperate to put their recent Australian ordeal behind them.

The word from the New Zealand camp is that Bond has been making steady progress and is likely to play, but we've all heard that one before and know how it usually ends - with him coming down with some exotic illness on the morning of the game.

If he cannot play then the ball is back in the hands of that honest and hard-toiling pace combination of James Franklin, Chris Martin, Kyle Mills and Jacob Oram, all of whom come with their own particular foibles.

Franklin struggles if the ball doesn't swing, Martin's rhythm comes and goes, Mills lacks a yard of pace and Oram is susceptible to injury, and subsequently cannot be expected to bowl as much as he's done in the past.

The batting problems are just as familiar, and were showcased this week when the opening combination of Jamie How and Michael Papps didn't get under way, and more senior players such as Nathan Astle, Scott Styris and Oram failed to deliver.

Only Fleming, Brendon McCullum and Peter Fulton took the chance to spend some time in the middle, although most of it was dedicated to repairing the innings after a string of mini collapses.

Logic hasn't always been seen as a prerequisite for the selectors this season, but chief John Bracewell must now be seriously considering moving Fulton into the opening position, to create a vacancy for the returning Oram.

Previously, he'd maintained that Oram would bat at number six instead of either incumbent Scott Styris or another middle-order player, but the events at Benoni this week might well have persuaded him to think again.

Meanwhile, South African selection chief Haroon Lorgatt has taken a leaf out of Sparc's book and nominated the number of test centuries he wants from his batsmen at Centurion, Newlands and Wanderers.

Lorgatt told yesterday's Business Day newspaper that he wanted four centuries from the South African top six over the course of the series, and that he believed sticking with the same squad trounced by Australia was a fair call.

"A series against Australia is the toughest any player will come up with, so we're reluctant to simply drop them on that basis," he said.

"We're hoping that many of them would have come out of that series harder and much more experienced and that they'll deliver the goods."