Cricket: Vettori's Warne experience could help Black Caps

Daniel Vettori has only just come down from the highlight of his cricket career -- bowling in tandem with Shane Warne -- and the experience could be a key to New Zealand's chances of beating the World 11.

New Zealand's batting will face potentially the most challenging 20 overs of their careers in the series opener here tomorrow when Warne and Muttiah Muralitharan team up for the World 11.

The spin duo, with 1098 test wickets and a further 662 one-day international victims between them, are the two most successful bowlers in test history.

The thought of them teaming up is almost beyond comprehension for most international batsmen, who have struggled enough with just one at a time and a mere mortal at the other end.

But the dream spin duo will become a reality thanks to the Federation of International Cricketers' Associations (FICA) and New Zealand Cricket who assembled a star-studded World 11 for the three-match series which hopes to raise $1 million for the tsunami relief fund.

Vettori's eyes still glaze over when he recounts his Melbourne Cricket Ground experience from last week when he teamed with Warne to take three for 58 off 10 overs, with Warne's return two for 27 off seven.

The experience as the Rest of the World team beat the Asian side in the tsunami charity match, will help Vettori with both bat and ball tomorrow.

"I found it enthralling the way he attacks the game," Vettori said.

"People respect the fact he's a great spin artist but people don't know how much he thinks about it and looks at different players. He's got a great memory of how he's got people out in the past.

"I took a lot from that, talking a lot about individual players, especially in the Asian team.

"It'll go down as one of the highlights of my career. As a cricketer I respected Warney a lot, and I found him a really good guy."

The main focus in the New Zealand camp was how to possibly limit the damage from when Warne and Muralitharan team up, likely between overs 15 and 35.

In the past, survival has been instinct No 1 for New Zealand against Warne or Muralitharan.

With double the trouble now, it won't do to block both bowlers out for 20 overs.

"Your first six balls against those guys are pretty crucial because that's when they go in for the kill and they can really do the damage early on," Vettori said.

"You need your defence in order so you can survive the first three or four balls, then you look to where your single options are.

"In our team the boundaries normally take care of themselves, we just have to find ways of ticking the strike over."

Chris Cairns will have a big role to play, and going by hints from coach John Bracewell this week, will be used as a batting floater to try to break the spinners up.

Cairns has tasted success against Warne before, while in Melbourne last week he smashed Muralitharan over the wide mid-wicket boundary before being fooled by the infamous doosra which spins the other way. He still did the damage, with 69 off 47 balls.

Vettori had every reason to wake up on New Year's Day with a contented look, having fought back from a horror first half of 2004 with 20 wickets in the Bangladesh test series, being New Zealand's standout bowler in Australia, then carrying on in the charity match.

"I took some confidence and a big workload into Australia and things have just carried on. Once you get on that roll it's probably harder to get off it than it is to get on."

Other stars of the World 11 include Australians Justin Langer and Ian Harvey, Sri Lankans Muralitharan, Sanath Jayasuirya, Chaminda Vaas and Kumar Sangakkara, and South Africans Jonty Rhodes and Lance Klusener.

New Zealand will be without key allrounder Jacob Oram who was ruled out yesterday with a back strain, opening the way for Jeff Wilson to make his international comeback.

- NZPA