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Daniel Vettori captured the plight of New Zealand's World Twenty20 campaign in a single line on the eve of their knockout Super Eights game against Sri Lanka at Trent Bridge. He had said at the start of the tournament that New Zealand's strength was in their top order and now "potentially three of those top four [batsmen] might not play one of our most important games" in the competition.
Vettori was referring to the loss of Jesse Ryder from the entire tournament because of a groin problem, and the possible absences of Ross Taylor, who strained his hamstring, and Brendon McCullum, the latest addition to the casualty ward, from a game New Zealand must win to keep their semi-final hopes alive. McCullum sustained a broken bone and damaged ligament after a collision with Neil Broom off the last ball during the defeat to Pakistan. He hasn't been ruled out of Tuesday's game, though, and his team-mates are hoping that he responds well to an injection.
"It's another injury we desperately didn't need," Vettori said. "It's not easy. We didn't expect to call players in from outside the 15 and we didn't expect to only pick from 11 in a couple of games." If McCullum isn't fit and Taylor is, then it will be a straight swap, but if both are unfit, it's likely that Neil Broom will come into the XI and Martin Guptill will open the innings.
New Zealand will be desperate for McCullum to play though, for more than the obvious reason that he is one of their most explosive batsmen. McCullum's the only player with first-hand insight into the wiles of Sri Lankan offspinner Ajantha Mendis, his Kolkata Knight Riders team-mate in the IPL. None of the other New Zealand batsmen have faced Mendis before and how they handle his four overs could be one of the decisive factors of the game. Teams have struggled when facing Mendis for the first time: India were one of the first, during the Test tour of Sri Lanka in 2008, and Australia were the most recent, losing 3 for 20 to the spinner during their group match in the World Twenty20.
"Brendon has been trying to offer as much insight as possible," Vettori said. "He's [Mendis] going to be an immensely difficult prospect along with Murali and Malinga as well. It's a total package for them [Sri Lanka] in terms of their bowling line-up but Mendis is probably the newest one for us. We're leaning on Brendon a lot for his experience of him in the IPL."
Mendis and Muttiah Muralitharan need only the tiniest of openings to bury the opposition. They are capable of triggering a collapse at any stage, irrespective of how well set the batsmen are, but are at their most dangerous against new batsmen. "If we lose wickets through those middle stages then the new guys who haven't seen them [Mendis and Murali] before are going to be put under a heap of pressure," Vettori said. "So if we can be none or one down when they come on to bowl it's going to make a massive difference."
And then there's the threat posed by Lasith Malinga. His fast and deadly accurate yorkers have been almost impossible to get away during the final overs and he's developed the knack of splaying the stumps with a slower full toss as well. Malinga's also had success against New Zealand in the past, taking 20 wickets in four Tests against them and nine in six ODI innings. Vettori, though, said New Zealand had studied how players like Matthew Hayden and Adam Gilchrist succeeded against Malinga's low unorthodox action and hoped his batsmen would be able to replicate the method tomorrow.
"I think Australia took him for 36 runs in his four-over spell [in the group match]," Vettori said. "So there are options to get him away, there are ways of doing it. Like most of batting it becomes an individual thing and you have to tailor your game to what he's doing."
New Zealand's semi-final chances hinge on how they counter Sri Lanka's potent bowling line-up - Vettori called Murali, Malinga and Mendis "three of the best Twenty20 bowlers in the world" - despite a depleted batting arsenal.
George Binoy is a senior sub-editor at Cricinfo
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