Five ways New Zealand can counter the Pakistan threat

#5 Pushing Neesham up and bringing Taylor down

Neesham has the technique to bat at 4 or 5

In his few appearances in India, Neesham showed a penchant for hanging around in tough situations and displayed a fight that was absent in the likes of Taylor, Guptill and Nicholls. He seems to be a good batsman with the right technique and needs to bat up the order a bit.

Pushing down Nicholls seems to be the only way Neesham can be accommodated in the top order but another option that might work well is to push Nicholls to 4 and Neesham to 5. This would mean Taylor needs to bat at no.6.

Taylor has not been in the best of form of late and a move down the order might give him time to settle down into the dynamics of the game. The move would also add some much-needed experience to the lower middle order. Nicholls has already shown his adaptability in the tour of South Africa where he played an admirable knock in the final innings.