Wellington: Left-arm seamer Ashish Nehra is all set to earn his 12th Test cap when he joins Zaheer Khan, Ajit Agarkar and Sanjay Bangar in a four-pronged pace attack in India's first Test against New Zealand starting here on Thursday.

According to coach John Wright India would field the pace quartet including Nehra - the most natural medium-pacer in the team - to make the most of a wicket said to be the liveliest seen in recent times at Basin Reserve.

The conditions have largely been influenced by persistent bad weather in the last fortnight though vandals running away with covers and home captain Stephen Fleming's not-so-subtle request to groundsmen have contributed its bit to the state of the pitch.

The visitors will be hoping Nehra to repeat the form he exhibited against Zimbabwe on his return from a three-year hiatus in 2000-2001 when he picked up 11 wickets at an impressive average of 19.73 in an away series.

Since then the Delhi seamer has played in only eight of the 22 Tests India has been involved in the last 16 months, missing out on an away series against Sri Lanka and two at home against England and Zimbabwe because of a combination of fitness and poor form.

Nehra hasn't been outstanding in these eight matches either, picking up only 20 wickets as his career average nose-dived to an all-time low of nearly 40 per wicket (39.97).

Nehra's best in this spell was his 12-wicket return in four successive Tests against the West Indies this summer, including the scalp of Brian Lara no less than three times, but he still ended up at a high average of 37.75 at the end of the away series.

Nehra's fitness has often come in way for the left-armer to do justice to his talent as he either runs out of gas or is unfit to play reasons which explain why he is still searching for his first five-wicket haul.

Javagal Srinath's return in the home series against West Indies recently made Nehra sit out in the first two Tests and only Zaheer Khan's absence in the third allowed him to play at Kolkata for figures of one for 66 from his 23 overs.

The spectre of his poor form again raised its head in the recent three-day game against Central Districts where the speedster bowled his 18 overs for only one wicket and was unable to account for number nine, 10 or 11 batsmen as the hosts made an astounding recovery from a hopeless situation.

But he received an encouraging vote of approval from captain Saurav Ganguly who termed Nehra's bowling as decent in Napier.

"He didn't bowl badly at all," said Ganguly as he looked back at the three-day game.

Wright is impressed with the pacer's "lovely use of wrist" while bowling and such faith by the seniors must goad the youngster to do his best in the first Test in what would be his 11th Test abroad to only one played at home.

Nehra must look to lead from the front in the first Test as the visitors would be keen to halt the run of a hat-trick of defeats at Basin Reserve more so since Zaheer would be practically bowling without a decent nets because of a bad bruise, sustained in the Super Max game against New Zealand in Christchurch last week.

The other two medium-pacers - Ajit Agarkar (34 wickets from 15 Tests ) and Sanjay Bangar (5 wickets from 10 Tests) at best have bowling skills which fill up the overs.

India, like New Zealand, will go with only one spinner in the match. Harbhajan Singh and Daniel Vettori will be the lone spinners for their side in the Test and coincidentally, both have identical number of wickets 139 though Harbhajan at 31 has played 11 Tests fewer.

Harbhajan was India's man of the series against the West Indies recently though his overseas form (49 wickets from 21 Tests at 36.65) is not much to cheer about.

Extras:
Indian batsman get good practice, match drawn
Wright defends batsmen after poor show in tour tie
Thatscricket Special: Indians in Kiwiland