3 Mar 2011

Black Caps work on taking on spinners

6:39 am on 3 March 2011

The New Zealand opening batsmen Martin Guptill and Brendon McCullum have put extra emphasis on their playing of spin bowling ahead of the side's must win World Cup match against Zimbabwe in India tomorrow.

The game is expected to decide which team will advance to the quarterfinals.

Zimbabwe has a reliance on spin bowling, with the spinners having generally bowled 40 of the 50 overs in their previous two matches against Australia and Canada.

To combat that Guptill and McCullum have spent plenty of time in the nets facing Dan Vettori and Nathan McCullum who've used new balls to try and get them accustomed to spinners opening the bowling attack.