Cricket: NZC not fazed by new Australian selection guidelines

James Pattinson took a five-wicket bag on his test debut against the Black Caps. Photo / Getty Images

New Zealand Cricket is reading little into the new selection guidelines being used across the Tasman that could see the Black Caps play weakened Australian sides.

Cricket Australia is poised to introduce a new criteria which involves resting frontline players in test matches against the lower ranked nations.

Since the Black Caps are ranked eighth in tests they could expect to face Australian sides lacking key players in future encounters as players are rested for the likes of England, South Africa and India.

Black Caps assistant coach Trent Woodhill says if the Australians field second string sides, they may live to regret it.

"They can roll out whoever they like but unless they get the performances on the board, they know the public won't stand for it,'' he told Radio Sport.

Australia played a relatively inexperienced lineup in their recent two-test series against the Black Caps, with James Pattinson, David Warner and Mitchell Starc all making their debuts, but that was largely down to injuries.

Both Pattinson and Warner had stand out performances picking up man of the match awards however the Black Caps still managed to record a win in the second test.

Woodhill says the Australian team is never going to rotate their batsmen and it's more about the bowlers.

"I think they're just dressing it up. I think what they're trying to do is just basically rotate their quick bowlers who are all young and inexperienced and they're going to break down at times, so I think it's a matter of rotating the bowlers so they're fit and firing,'' he says.

Woodhill says if they field a weakened side they run the risk of being hammered like they were by the Black Caps in Hobart. The Black Caps aren't set to face Australia in a test series until 2015.

Cricket Australia's team performance chief Pat Howard told the Sydney Morning Herald that they took a conservative approach in the Black Caps series, giving players a chance to get ready for the top ranked Indians.

"We do look at different series differently and obviously we took the Indian series very much about trying to drive performance, so if a player was touch and go we'd probably push him for this series knowing that if we had to rest him for part of the ODI series, so be it. For New Zealand we took more of a conservative approach, took the chance to get people right," Howard said.

"There are risks associated with that and we have to keep that balance. Without question we want to win every series and we're never going to go in with a B-team against anybody, that's for sure. But we will take the opportunity to introduce players. The upside [of losing to New Zealand] is that we got to see David Warner at his best."

- NEWSTALK ZB/HERALD ONLINE