Shane Bond has made a late withdrawal from the BLACKCAPS side ahead of the second National Bank Test against the West Indies at the Basin Reserve.
Kyle Mills steps up to fill in after Bond, who took seven wickets in the first Test to help the hosts to a 27-run win. picked up a virus.
Stephen Fleming revealed the late change after visiting captain Shivnarine Chanderpaul won the toss and elected to bat first.
Fleming told BLACKCAPS.co.nz columnist Gavin Larsen: “It is bad news. He’s no energy and it’s too big a risk to play him.
“It’s a good opportunity for Kyle, who comes in. We were going to bat but there is going to something in the pitch early. I’ve played a lot of cricket here and there’s not as much moisture as usual.
“Hopefully the swing bowlers will get a little bit of assistance, Frankie (James Franklin) and Millsy, and hopefully they’ll get the chance now to take some wickets, and if we get three or four before lunch, then we’ll be right in the game.”
Fleming also insisted his top-order colleagues need to build a solid platform for his team when batting.
“Obviously days two, three and four will be good batting days,” he added. “We’ll just have to bat well.
“The top order has to do the job. We can’t just keep on scraping through with 15s, 20s and 30s. We’ve got to make sure it’s substantial and we’ haven’t been too bad in Test cricket at that.
“We’ve just got to make sure that we put some pressure on them in the last innings.”
Chanderpaul is without his deputy, Ramnaresh Sarwan, and has called up Runako Morton. Daren Powell and Rawl Lewis are also included in the side. Dwayne Smith and Jerome Taylor miss out.
BLACKCAPS: Nathan Astle, Stephen Fleming (captain), Peter Fulton, James Franklin, Jamie How, Brendon McCullum, Hamish Marshall, Chris Martin, Kyle Mills, Scott Styris, Daniel Vettori.
West Indies: Chris Gayle, Daren Ganga, Brian Lara, Runako Morton, Shivnarine Chanderpaul (captain), Dwayne Bravo, Denesh Ramdin, Ian Bradshaw, Fidel Edwards, Rawl Lewis, Daren Powell.
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