New Zealand Cricket is attempting to fast-track the availability of Australian-born players with New Zealand parents into eligibility for the national side.

The realisation that Auckland all-rounder Tama Canning could not be included in New Zealand's one-day side for the National Bank series with Zimbabwe, starting in Taupo on Tuesday, has highlighted the problem which frustrated national selection convener Sir Richard Hadlee when he and his selectors were trying to put a team together.

"I guess New Zealand Cricket now have an issue they must address," Hadlee said.

"It doesn't only affect Tama Canning, it also affects Aaron Redmond who was born in Australia. Which means they have to spend four years in their chosen country.

"It just seems interesting that NZC bring in players from overseas, we put them into the Academy, we take them on youth tours, academy tours or A team tours and yet when we want them to be considered for higher honours, a technicality is put in our way.

"Unfortunately for Tama he can't be considered for another two years, unless the rulings do change. As I understand it, New Zealand are pursuing a slight concession on that as has been the case with other overseas players," he said.

In announcing his team, for the three games of the Zimbabwe series Hadlee confirmed it was named with the 2003 World Cup in mind.

"The situation may be that in two or three years time some senior players may be unavailable, so we need to introduce younger players to where they are at and we are certainly not making any apologies for throwing young players into the deep end. We want to see where they're at, they want to know where they are at in their development for the future," he said.

New Zealand was trying to juggle the need to introduce new blood with developing a winning habit. Having won the ICC KnockOut Trophy, New Zealand was hammered 5-0 in a one-day series in South Africa.

"We want to win not only each match but to win the series. We respect Zimbabwe because they beat us recently 2-1 in their own country.

"They do have a reasonable record in one-day cricket and they do have a habit of beating some very good sides and we realise that we will have to be on top of our game and that we will have to have a blend of real experience and attacking batsmen," he said.

The introduction of Chris Martin as a front-line bowler was the result of New Zealand wanting more wickets in the early overs.

"We're well aware that last year he picked up 12 Shell Cup wickets at round about 22 apiece which is not too bad. We know that his economy rate last year was about 5.3 runs per over which is quite high and had a best of 5-43.

"But that was a year ago.

"And the development he has had over the last four or five months you must say has been quite exciting and through that impressive performance in Test matches, let's see how he handles the one-day game and if he can adapt to that format of the game as he has to the Test game then we have another win-win situation," Hadlee said.

© CricInfo