Daniel Vettori
The BLACKCAPS captain talks before the first Twenty20 match against Sri Lanka in Colombo.
On the new guys joining the team…
“Yeah they have been here a little while and most of them have been in Chennai so they’ve been working pretty hard and they’ve got a good feel for the conditions. I suppose when you’ve been through a tough tour it’s good to see some fresh faces. They new guys are pretty confident and they bring that to the team so hopefully we can steal a little bit of that heading into the Twenty20 tomorrow.”
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On make up of the Twenty20 team…
“The top four probably picks itself. There’s a decision whether to go with the third outright seamer or the second spinner. Peter McGlashan comes into the play as well with the way he bats around the six or seven mark, so we’ve probably got it down to a 12, and we just need to make a decision on that final bowling make up.”
On whether Peter McGlashan is likely to play…
“If Pete plays he’ll keep because I think Brendon is better in the field than Peter is and it gives us a bit better balance.”
On Brendon McCullum’s looking to get back into form…
“Yeah, well he’s looking forward to it. It’s Twenty20’s where he’s done well for New Zealand in the past. Look back to the Indian series where he won us a couple of games for us so I know he’ll be calling on that form and wanting to turn a few things round.”
On learning from the match against Sri Lanka in the ICC Twenty20 Championship…
“There’s a few things. I think we realise that the real strength is in the Sri Lankan top order so hopefully we can get some early wickets and put their middle order some pressure, and I suppose for a lot of our guys having faced Mendez in the Test series they’ll feel a lot more comfortable about coming up against him. That makes it easier because obviously he’s a quality bowler in any form of the game. Those are the differences between the last game. However, having said that Sri Lanka had a fantastic World Cup so we know how strong a team they can be, and they are so well led.”
On the return of Shane Bond…
“I haven’t really seen a lot of him. We’ve just finished the Test series and had a day off yesterday so today will be the day I get a chance to have a good look at him.
“We don’t want to put too much pressure on Shane. He’s been a while out of international cricket this will be his first chance back into it. I know he’ll just want to find his way back into it and not have to carry the weight of the world on his shoulders. So we’ll let him ease into it and hopefully we’ll get the results that everyone’s accustomed to because we know on his day he is one of the best bowlers in the world.”
On playing Kyle Mills…
“I think Kyle’s probably in there building into that One Day Series and then we will make a decision between Ian Butler and Nathan McCullum.”
On the confidence of the batting line up after the Test series...
“It’s like I said after the Test matches the guys are a lot more confident in the One Day and Twenty20 games. I think they understand it a bit better and they’ve got a lot of experience as well so they’ll call on that and hopefully they will quickly switch from where we were in the Test matches. It’s something we have done a number of times over the last few of years, unfortunately in some ways, but hopefully we can call on that again.”
On being a selector for the game…
“I’m still not a selector yet. The first team I select is the team to Dubai.”
On the importance of winning the toss…
“Very - we know that. I think it tends to swing round a little bit at night and that can dictate the make up of your team as well. If we win the toss we’ll look to bat and put a decent score on and put pressure on the Sri Lankan top order. That’s how teams have won here on a number of occasions. It’s well reputed that it swings quite a bit at night and hopefully our swing bowlers can make the most of it. But I suppose you don’t want to put everything into a toss if you do happen to lose it you still expect guys to come out and try and win the game.”
