Wellington, Oct 6 (IANS): New Zealand on Thursday brought in pacer Blair Tickner into the squad for the T20 Tri-Series in Christchurch, also involving Pakistan and Bangladesh, as a cover for spinner Mitchell Santner, who is on parental leave.

Santner will not arrive at the camp until the weekend following the birth of his first child last week.

The T20 Tri-series starts on Friday with Pakistan meeting Bangladesh in the opener in Christchurch.

With the Black Caps taking on Pakistan on Saturday night, the squad needed a cover for Santner and thus Tickner joined the group.

On Thursday, the New Zealand squad had their crucial practice ahead of their opening match against Pakistan in their opening match.

New Zealand are preparing for the T20 World Cup and are expected to use the 15 players in the Black Caps squad for the tournament, with selector Gavin Larsen saying on Monday that rotation would be applied and they will try different combinations over the next four or five games, depending on results.

"Certainly the goal is to rotate the squad across the playing opportunities through that tri-series and to basically fine-tune what has been our existing game plan over the recent time," Larsen was quoted as saying by the local media.

"There's certainly nothing majorly different that we're going to be focusing on - they're very important preparation games for us."