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Pakistan are likely to leave out pacemen Wasim Akram and Mohammad Sami for the first cricket Test against New Zealand starting at Gaddafi Stadium Wednesday.

Instead, the home team is contemplating going in the match with two specialist spinners in Saqlain Mushtaq and wrist spinner Danish Kaneria. The leg spinner last played for Pakistan in the home series against the West Indies at Sharjah in February.

Pakistan are also expected to retain Shoaib Malik as makeshift opener at the expense of Imran Nazir. Malik hit a career-best 115 in the third One-day and also took three for 37.

Pakistan coach Mudassar Nazar confirmed that under present conditions, which are extremely hot and humid, two spinners will play.

"Yes, we are considering to rest a couple of senior players and include young guys," he said at the venue of the Test after his team's early morning workouts.

The wicket prepared for the game was being heavily rolled Monday. But with the temperature rising to 37 degrees Celsius by 11.30am and expected to stay the same in days to come.

Mudassar repeated that his team was at par with Australia. He insisted that it was only Pakistan that had the capability to beat the world champions.

Mudassar disagreed that his team was on a roll. "I don't think so because we lost the Asian Test Championship final to Sri Lanka and lost two league matches in Sharjah earlier this year."

Meanwhile New Zealand manager Denis Aberhart Monday said his team didn't need to go back to the drawing board after suffering a 3-0 whitewash against Pakistan in the One-day International series.

"We are disappointed with a 3-0 result but all starts again at love-all. So we are looking forward to the Tests and so not back to the drawing board, just new game," he told reporters at the Gaddafi Stadium.

Pakistan won the first one-dayer at Karachi by 153 runs, sealed the series in Rawalpindi by three wickets before recording their first clean sweep in six years by winning the Lahore match by 66 runs.

New Zealand, despite missing Chris Cairns, Shane Bond, Dion Nash and Daniel Vettori, were expected to perform better after they were fresh from victories on the Australian tour and then clinching the one-day series 3-2 against England.

"I am disappointed with the performance in Karachi but did reasonably well in Rawalpindi where we stretched Pakistan to the limits. There were parts of the game when we did well in the last match," he said. But he maintained that Test cricket was a different ball game and both the teams would start even. "We want to do the basics well. Obviously we want to make sure that when we bat, we put good partnerships. When a batsman settles down, we would like to see him get a big score.

"Bowling wise, we want to make sure that we bowl at good length, dry down the runs and bring Pakistan batsmen under pressure. If we could do that for a long period of time, I think we have good chance," he said.

Pakistan, in a bid to end victory drought, named two spinners in Saqlain Mushtaq and Danish Kaneria who are likely to be named in the starting lineup. "We believe we played spinners well recently. Our batsmen showed they play spinners well and I am confident they do the same here."

© Dawn