DUNEDIN. New Zealand. Mar 2: Fearsome fast bowlers Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis should give

Pakistan an advantage here Thursday in the first one-day series match against New Zealand, reports AFP.

To make their odds look even better, some of Pakistan's batting talent showed one-day skills In the recent Test series which the tourists won 2-1.

However, the weather may have the final say here, with gloomy autumn skies predicted and neither team able to practise outdoors.

Pakistani captain Salim Malik claims that following sitflllar experiences here the word "Dunedtn" has entered the Urdu dictionary defined as wet and cloudy weather

If the weather holds long enough New Zealand believe they can frustrate Pakistan's strokemakers.

They're extremely strong in batting. They're all dashers, but they were put under pressure in the third Test at Christchurch and crumbled a bit,' New Zealand coach Geoff Howarth said.

The idea will be to put them under as much pressure

as possible and we might see some false strokes."

Under one-day rules, bowlers are restricted to 10 overs each, which should help negate the influence of Akram and Younis.

In the three-Test series, the pair bowled 278 overs between them. The other seven bowlers used by Paktstan cap tatn Salim Malik got through Just 148 overs.

Howarth believes Pakistan's back-up' bowlers are "vulnerable" and Is confident New Zealand have the batting capability to take advantage of their shortcomings.

"If they get it all together they could score a pile of runs and they are current world champions, so they've got that to live up to," he added.

"But if we perform as we can, with consistency in all departments, there's no reason why we shouldn't pull off the series."

New Zealand will go into the series full of confidence If records are anything to go by.

In 15 one-dayers between the countries in New Zealand, the home side have won 10 and lost Just four, with one

Pakistan were New Zealand’s opponents In their

first one-day international, a 22-run win for New Zealand in Christchurch in 1873.

Since then Pakistan have been restricted to a seven wicket win In Auckland in 1889, back -to-back World Cup victories at Christchurch and crucially in the Auckland semifinal, and in Wellington last season.

The two countries have only contested a single one-dayer here previously. That game in 1989 resulted in an eight-wteket win for New Zealand.

Overall, out of 28 matches, Pakistan have won 14 and New Zealand 13, with the one abandonment.

TEAMS

NEW ZEALAND (from): Ken Rutherford (captain), Bryan Young, Mark Greatbatch, Andrew Jones, Shane Thomson. Chris Harris, Chris Cairns, Tony Blain, Matthew Hart, Gavin Larsen, Danny Morrison. Chris Pringle, Richard de Groen.

PAKISTAN (from): Salim Malik (captain), Saeed Anwar. Aamir Sohail, Asif Mujtaba, AUf Rauf, Basit All, Inzamam-ul Haq, Shoaib Mohammed, Rashid Latif, Shakeel Ahmed, Wasim Akram, Akram Raza, Waqar Younis, Ata-ur Rehman, Aamir Nazir.