LAHORE, Pakistan, 29 November 2003 — All-rounder Chris Cairns led a new look New Zealand cricket team to play a challenging five-match one-day series against a settling Pakistan team starting with the day-night fixture here today.
“We have things to achieve on this tour and we are not here to be second but we know Pakistan will provide challenge in different ways for our inexperienced side but we look forward to various challenges,” said Cairns in a press conference.
The 15-man New Zealand squad arrived yesterday amidst tight security on a tour which initially ran into trouble after four Black Cap players pulled out over security fears. Craig McMillan, Scot Styris, Ian Butler and Lou Vincent pulled out of the tour after they received threats from an anonymous e-mailer. Two possible replacements — Andre Adams and Matthew Horne — also refused to tour while regular captain Stephen Fleming, pacer Shane Bond and opener Nathan Astle are nursing injuries.
New Zealand Cricket (NZC) only agreed to the tour after the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) postponed the series by a week and also threatened to pull out of their next months reply tour of New Zealand.
The current tour itself is a compensation of Black Caps’ abandoned tour of last year after a suicide bomb blast killed 14 people in May last year in southern port city of Karachi. Tama Canning, Matthew Walker and Craig Cumming are uncapped while Hamish Marshall and Kerry Walmsley have been recalled after long spells in the wilderness. “We are serious about what we want to achieve from the tour. I think its a good opportunity for some of the blokes with respect to have the feel of international cricket,” said Cairns.
Cairns, not on the cut short tour last year, along with veteran all-rounder Chris Harris, Jacob Oram, Daryl Tuffey, Daniel Vettori and Matthew Sinclair provide the experience to the side.
“We start the series as underdogs and under their conditions with the win against South Africa under their belt so its a big challenge but one that we try to tackle,” said Cairns. Cairns and coach Ashley Ross parried questions on security and said it should be left to NZC chief executive Martin Snedden who is also on the tour.
Lahore will also stage the second match on Dec. 1 while Faisalabad will host the third match on Dec. 3. The last two games will be played at Rawalpindi on Dec. 5 and 7. Pakistan is also depleted with opener Taufeeq Umer missing the series due to knee injury while express pacer Shoaib Akhtar will miss the first two matches through suspension.
