Left-arm seamer Ashish Nehra is all set to earn his 12th Test cap when he joins Zaheer Khan, Ajit Agarkar and Sanjay Bangar in a four-pronged pace attack in India's first Test against New Zealand, starting in Wellington on Thursday.

According to coach John Wright, India will field the pace quartet in order to make the most of a Basin Reserve wicket, said to be at its liveliest in recent times.

The conditions have largely been influenced by persistent bad weather in the last fortnight though vandals, running away with the covers, and home captain Stephen Fleming's not-so-subtle request to the groundsmen have contributed its bit to the state of the pitch.

The visitors will be hoping for Nehra to repeat the form he exhibited against Zimbabwe on his return from a three-year hiatus in 2000-2001, when he picked 11 wickets at an impressive average of 19.73 in an away series.

Since then the Delhi seamer played in only eight of the 22 Tests India has been involved in during the last 16 months, missing out on an away series against Sri Lanka and two at home against England and Zimbabwe because of poor fitness and form.

Nehra wasn't outstanding in the eight matches either, picking only 20 wickets as his career average nose-dived to an all-time low of nearly 40 per wicket (39.97). His best during this spell was his 12-wicket return in four successive Tests against the West Indies this summer, including the scalp of Brian Lara no less than three times. But he still ended up at a high average of 37.75 at the end of the away series.

Fitness has often come in the way of him doing justice to his talent, as he either runs out of gas or is ruled unfit, reasons which explain why he is still searching for his first five-wicket haul.

Javagal Srinath's return in the home series against the West Indies recently made Nehra sit out in the first two Tests and
only Zaheer Khan's absence in the third allowed him to play at Kolkata for figures of one for 66 from his 23 overs.

The spectre of his poor form again raised its head in the recent three-day game against Central Districts, where the speedster bowled 18 overs for only one wicket and was unable to account for number nine, 10 or 11 batsmen as the hosts made an astounding recovery from a hopeless situation.

But he received an encouraging vote of approval from captain Sourav Ganguly, who termed his bowling as decent in Napier.

"He didn't bowl badly at all," said Ganguly, as he looked back at the three-day game.

Wright is impressed with the pacer's "lovely use of wrist" while bowling and such faith by the seniors must goad the youngster to do his best in the first Test, his 11th abroad to only one played at home.

Nehra must look to lead from the front in the first Test as the visitors would be keen to halt the run of a hat-trick of defeats at Basin Reserve, moreso since Zaheer would be practically bowling without a decent nets because of a bad bruise, sustained in the Super Max game against New Zealand in Christchurch last week.

The other two medium-pacers -- Ajit Agarkar and Sanjay Bangar -- have 34 wickets from 15 Tests and 5 wickets from 10 Tests to their names respectively.

India, like New Zealand, will go in with only one spinner in Harbhajan Singh. Daniel Vettori, 42 Tests,  will be the lone spinner in the New Zealand side. Coincidentally, both have an identical number of wickets -- 139 -- though Harbhajan, at 21, has played 11 Tests less.

Harbhajan was India's man of the series against the West Indies recently though his overseas form (49 wickets from 21 Tests at 36.65) is not much to cheer about.