WELLINGTON: The West Indies won the toss and elected to bowl first in the opening Test against New Zealand at the University Oval in Dunedin Tuesday.
Overcast conditions and a green tinged wicket are expected to assist the bowlers in the first session.
However, the wicket has a reputation for flattening out quickly.
"The wicket looks very bowler friendly and hopefully we can exploit that," West Indies captain Darren Sammy said.
The West Indies have included Shane Shillingford in their starting line up while he is still awaiting the results of the testing on the legality of his bowling action.
New Zealand captain Brendon McCullum, who is yet to win a Test since taking over the leadership a year ago, said he also favoured bowling first.
"It's a pretty good wicket and we're going to have to play well. The pressure is on us to have a good first innings," he said.
New Zealand are without Kane Williamson, their most productive batsmen on their recent tour of Bangladesh, who pulled out on the eve of the Test to give an injured thumb more time to recover.
Teams:
New Zealand: Brendon McCullum (captain), Corey Anderson, Trent Boult, Peter Fulton, Aaron Redmond, Hamish Rutherford, Ish Sodhi, Tim Southee, Ross Taylor, Neil Wagner, BJ Watling, Doug Bracewell (12th man).
West Indies: Darren Sammy (captain), Kieran Powell, Kirk Edwards, Darren Bravo, Marlon Samuels, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Narsingh Deonarine, Denesh Ramdin, Shane Shillingford, Tino Best, Shannon Gabriel.
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Umpires: Ian Gould (ENG), Paul Reiffel (AUS)
TV umpire: Nigel Llong (ENG)
Match referee: Roshan Mahanama (SRI)
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