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Martin Guptill bats - Source: Reuters -
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It's been a barren year for New Zealand's batsmen but if they look hard enough at the sun-baked McLean Park wicket, they might just see their oasis.
At first glance, there are portents of doom everywhere for the Black Caps. Pakistan look like a team on the improve - their catching cannot get any worse, at least - while the same can't be said for the struggling hosts.
And there's an eerie similarity between this Test and their ill-fated meeting with England at the same venue 18 months ago.
Then, the teams arrived with a three-Test series in the balance, following a dreadful Black Caps batting capitulation at the Basin Reserve that gave an average England side the leg-up they needed to win in Napier and steal the series 2-1.
Sound familiar?
However, while current form suggests Pakistan will sign off on the New Zealand leg of their tour down under with a series win, the ground's history points more towards a sharing of the spoils.
Of the eight Tests played at McLean Park, only two have yielded results - a thrashing at the hands of Sri Lanka in 1995, and England's aforementioned series clincher.
The six draws have been dour affairs, marred by a combination of rain and a dead pitch - usually both.
Seven 400-plus scores have been racked up since the first Test was held there 30 years ago; while there have been just four completed innings of less than 200.
As recently as March, the Black Caps and India played out a
stalemate in which 1,400 runs were scored for the loss of just 23
wickets. There were five centuries and seven 50s shared between the
teams.
Rumours
Fast forward nine months and, while Pakistan's on-fire pace attack will be hoping rumours of a change in the air (and in the wicket) are true, it would pay not to get too excited just yet.
Reports of a fast bowling paradise are little more than a red herring and it would be a huge surprise if Jeetan Patel did not take his place in the team at the expense of a fast bowler.
It may be a livelier wicket than groundsman Phil Stoyanoff usually turns out, but the hard, dry surface will still mean plenty of back-bending for the bowlers as the batsmen get value for money.
It's good news for debutant opener BJ Watling, who has been focusing on his own game rather than the cataclysmic failures of his opening colleagues in the first two Tests.
"I'm just working on playing the ball late, good leaving and just good positive intent, with my feet and with everything I do," Watling told ONE News.
He may not have walked the walk yet, but at least Watling's talk indicates that he's prepared to.
Nor does he give the impression of being intimidated by spearhead Mohammed Asif, who grabbed 17 wickets in the first two Tests.
"If he gets it wrong, then put him away," was Watling's advice to his peers.
Watling's alliance with Tim McIntosh at the top of the order will be crucial to the team's confidence; it will also be a short one if the latter can't battle his way out of his current rut.
Happily for the lanky left-hander, his only Test innings of note to date came at McLean Park: A well-compiled 136 against the West Indies last summer.
Vettori, the decidedly more in-form lanky left-hander, looks set move up the No.6 at the expense of either all-rounder Grant Elliott or fast bowler Daryl Tuffey.
Elliott is still struggling with a knee injury and even if fit, it's hard to see a place for him in the team with the captain batting in his spot.
If the pitch does prove benign, a fifth bowler will be essential to the cause and there will be no shortage of motivation, with the opportunity to send stalwart Iain O'Brien into retirement with a rare series win.
At least Vettori knows he will get the best out of his bowlers more often than not. He'll be hoping the willow-wielders get the best out of the pitch over the next five days.
