LAHORE – New Zealand captain Daniel Vettori will sit out the third one-day cricket international against Pakistan at Christchurch on Saturday while the newly established opening pair of Jesse Ryder and Martin Guptill have been broken up after one innings together. New Zealand made three changes to the 12 who featured in the first two matches, a nine-wicket win at Wellington last Saturday and today’s abandoned match at Queenstown.
Wellington left-arm spinner Luke Woodcock replaces Vettori, while batsman Kane Williamson and pace bowler Kyle Mills come into the squad for Ryder and allrounder James Franklin. Vettori will stay with the team as 13th man, while Ryder and Franklin have been released to play for Wellington. Ross Taylor will be the captain while Jamie How will open alongside Guptill.
The changes are part of the selectors’ rotation policy for this six-match series and they attempt to give all 15 players in the World Cup squad time in the middle ahead of the subcontinent-hosted tournament, which starts in mid-February. Today’s match was officially abandoned at 3.17pm when the umpires decided there was no chance the match could get underway by 4.17pm, which was the cut-off point of a minimum 20 overs-a-side match.
Rain delayed the start by an hour, which initially reduced the match to 48 overs a side, but only 4.2 overs were possible before the precipitation returned and set in for the afternoon. Pakistan had raced through to 31 without loss, with Ahmed Shehzad 25 not out and Mohammad Hafeez on four. After several days of fine weather, there were periods of brief rain here this morning but the covers were peeled off at 10.10am.
A toss was made on time at 10.30 – New Zealand won it and decided to bowl – but the rain returned just before the scheduled start time of 11am. The spectators were given a reprieve and 26 balls of action before the rain returned at 12.20pm. New Zealand lead the six-match series 1-0. The third match is at Christchurch on Saturday.
