New Zealand are looking to bounce back from their dreadful first Test defeat and salvage some pride as well as a series draw with Pakistan when the second Test starts on Saturday in Wellington.
The tourists claimed an emphatic 10-wicket success in Hamilton in the first Test, and a humbled New Zealand side are now desperate to restore some pride after such an embarrassing loss on home soil.
Black Caps captain Daniel Vettori accepts his side need to vastly improve their performance, especially in the batting department, in the second Test.
"We understand it was a poor performance but if we get too down in the dumps then we're not going to rectify it here,"said Vettori."We obviously didn't score enough runs in the last Test but I thought the bowling unit did a good job."
The pitch at the Basin Reserve should offer much more assistance to the bowlers, especially early on, but Vettori is not against batting first should he win the toss.
Wickets
"Coming to the Basin you think there's a chance early on to take some wickets but I think in the past the team that has been able to put a decent score on the board has actually had more success with the ball on days two and three,"Vettori said.
"It's about trying to balance that up but I think the final weighting of the team will have a huge influence on whether we bat or bowl. I think it will be another belter here, in that it will have a bit of pace and there will be something in it for everyone."
All-rounder James Franklin is expected to start at the expense of opener Tim McIntosh, with then the batting line-up all moving up a place and allowing Chris Martin, Brent Arnel and Tim Southee to rotate more in the bowling attack.
"Sometimes if you can have that extra bowler in the likes of a Franklin then it allows Chris Martin or Tim Southee to be even more of a strike bowler,"Vettori added.
"I thought they both bowled really well but they had a pretty big workload (in Hamilton), so maybe the addition of Franklin would take a bit of that workload off and they would be fresher for it. I think whenever you get a player like James in terms of the all round package it's a real advantage so you always try to fit that type of player in the team."
Pakistan confidence
Pakistan skipper Misbah-ul-Haq insists his side know they will also need to improve as a wounded New Zealand team will come back hard at them
"Actually we are just determined to perform well and want to improve our performance and then we will see what the result is,"Misbah said."All we want is to perform at 100 percent and then let's see.
"Confidence is the key in cricket, especially if you have good results then you tend to perform well and when you perform well, your confidence level is up. It's really good for us that our team's confidence level is up.
"They're still a good side in New Zealand and can give you a tough time at any time. It's not easy to beat them. It'll take really good, determined cricket from us for us to do that job here because these conditions suits them more.
"It's totally different from Hamilton and we have to just get ready for that and get used to the pace and bounce of this wicket."
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