Cricket: Bowlers key question before trophy matches

By RICHARD BOOCK

Whatever challenges New Zealand might face in next week's Champions Trophy, the battle for places within the side should at least make for a fascinating lead-in.

The team that won the knockout tournament in Kenya four years ago have a reasonably settled batting line-up for next week's campaign, as they demonstrated early yesterday morning while beating a Somerset XI by 105 runs at Taunton.

But the same cannot be said of their pace bowling attack, in which the trio of Ian Butler, Daryl Tuffey and Kyle Mills are effectively vying for just two positions.

Fuelled by a 173-run fifth wicket partnership between Chris Cairns and Hamish Marshall, New Zealand marched through to 275 at Taunton, before dismissing Somerset for 170 on a reportedly slow and tiring pitch.

Cairns demonstrated his appetite for the tournament with a rollicking 108 off just 80 balls - including eight sixes and five fours, and Marshall played another mature supporting role, scoring 56 before becoming one of Michael Parson's six victims.

Somerset's chase was then rocked by contributions from Kyle Mills and Daniel Vettori, both of whom took three wickets to ensure that the side's formal preparations began on the right foot.

The return was especially important for Mills, who marked his campaign for a recall with wickets off his first two deliveries, and enabled New Zealand to grab an initiative that was never seriously threatened.

Tuffey, on the other hand, suffered another setback in his bid to return to the ODI side, injuring a finger and being forced to play a reduced role, and raising more doubt over his readiness for next week's tournament opener.

The most experienced of New Zealand's specialist pacemen, he struggled to regain his rhythm during the winter tour to England and was later sidelined by a hip flexor injury after the start of his team's NatWest campaign.

With Mills having already struck some form and Butler reasonably well up to speed after a spell with Kent, the pressure on Tuffey is only likely to increase as the sudden-death showdown with Australia on Thursday week looms.

New Zealand skipper Stephen Fleming said yesterday that the competition between the pace bowlers was likely to become the feature of the side's build-up towards their pool games against the United States and Australia.

"It's shaping up as a really tight call between those three and it will be interesting to see who comes through when it's time to start the tournament.

"Millsy made a great start yesterday and did most things right, but there's still plenty of time for the others to put up their hands, and there's also the prospect of different conditions suiting different bowlers."

New Zealand were playing another warm-up match against a combined Somerset-Gloucestershire XI last night, and will cap their preparations with a shake-down against world No 2 Sri Lanka on Wednesday.

Fleming said an interesting aspect of the game against Somerset was the state of the Taunton pitch, which could yet provide an indication of what to expect at The Oval, where New Zealand will play both their pool matches.

Just as the Lord's pitch slowed up during the NatWest final in July, so did the wicket for the Somerset game, leading Fleming to wonder whether the toss was again likely to play a big role in the outcome of the tournament.

"It might make us look at our options ... maybe we can get some value out of someone like Craig McMillan, who could make the most out of the tiredness of the surfaces."