1 West Indies cricket captain Courtney Walsh was Thursday named in a 12-man squad for the first cricket Test against New Zealand, which starts Friday at Lancaster Park.
2 But a decision on whether he will take the field or be 12th man will be left until the morning.
3 Walsh has been undergoing treatment for an injured back for over a week but said Thursday he 'felt a lot better' after a reasonably strenuous workout in the nets.
4 The West Indies left Anderson Cummins and Roland Holder out of their squad and Walsh said he would have to be confident of seeing out all five days if he was to play.
5 'I won't risk it if I can't survive five days but I would say I'm 75 percent certain of playing,' Walsh said.
6 'I was happy with the workout and there were no complications after yesterday, so I'm feeling pretty confident.'
7 The tourists were forced to leave out Cummins, who also has been troubled by a bad back, while Holder lost out to Shivnarine Chanderpaul for the last middle-order batting spot.
8 The dilemma for the West Indies will be whether to take in four seamers -- Walsh, Curtly Ambrose, Winston Benjamin and Kenneth Benjamin -- or drop one in favor of Rajindra Dhanraj, who was a little erratic in the three-day game against Otago yet took four wickets, albeit expensively.
9 'We will weigh up all our options and if we think Dhanraj can be a match-winner we'll pick him, and if we think four seamers can win the match we'll pick them,' Walsh said.
10 New Zealand's problems center around the technique of its top-order batsmen.
11 'The history of this pitch is that the assistance for the bowlers doesn't last that long,' said New Zealand coach John Reid.
12 'I would imagine the team batting first might have a slightly uncomfortable first session, but from that point on it should play pretty well and the team batting first would be looking to score 300 to 350.'
13 All the top-order batsmen have been coached on the technique to use against Ambrose and the other West Indies pacemen but Reid is wary about getting bogged down in a defensive frame of mind.
14 'We need to strike a balance between tightness in terms of our technique and also keeping the scoreboard ticking over,' he said.
15 New Zealand is almost certain to leave Gavin Larsen out of its squad.
16 Teams:
17 West Indies: Courtney Walsh (captain), Brian Lara, Stuart Williams, Sherwin Campbell, Keith Arthurton, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Jimmy Adams, Junior Murray, Winston Benjamin, Curtly Ambrose, Kenneth Benjamin, Rajindra Dhanraj.
18 New Zealand: Ken Rutherford (captain), Danny Morrison, Bryan Young, Darrin Murray, Andrew Jones, Stephen Fleming, Shane Thomson, Adam Parore, Matthew Hart, Dion Nash, Simon Doull, Gavin Larsen.

West Indies cricket captain Courtney Walsh was Thursday named in a 12 - man squad for the first cricket Test against New Zealand , which starts Friday at Lancaster Park .
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