Murali, Vass for first Kiwi outing

Sri Lankan bowlers Muttiah Muralitharan and Chaminda Vass are likely to line-up for the tourists when they play New Zealand in the first one-day international of a five match series in Napier on Wednesday.

Both off-spinner Muralitharan and left-arm seamer Vass -- who between them total 304 one-day internationals and 398 wickets -- arrived in New Zealand carrying injuries from Sri Lanka's recent tour of South Africa.

But they bowled at practice on Tuesday and coach Dav Whatmore said he would be surprised if both did not play on Wednesday.

Sri Lanka lost a weekend warm-up game against a North Island Selection at New Plymouth by 28 runs, suffering a double blow when all-rounder Kaushalya Weeraratne broke a finger while fielding his own bowling.

Right-arm medium-fast bowler Indika Gallage is en-route from Colombo as a replacement.

Sri Lanka and New Zealand share similar recent records. Both lost heavily in South Africa -- New Zealand 6-0 in the one-day series and Sri Lanka 5-1.

Since then New Zealand have also lost 2-1 to Zimbabwe.

Reflecting on the Sri Lankans' poor tour to South Africa, Whatmore said: "We're sure glad to be in New Zealand. Both us and New Zealand went through a sharp learning curve in South Africa. They have the sort of depth neither of us can match, so this series will be an interesting one."

New Zealand, who learned last week that star all-rounder Chris Cairns will be out for six months with a knee injury, will welcome back left-arm orthodox spinner Daniel Vettori after recovering from his second stress fracture to the back in the space of a year.

Andrew Penn, another on the injured list in South Africa with a side strain, will also be back.

Mail Cricket Editor

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