Cricket: Australian rotation policy for tests risky, says Woodhill

New Zealand Cricket is reading little into 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 criterion which involves resting frontline players in test matches against lower-ranked nations.

New Zealand are currently ranked eighth in tests and could expect to face Australian sides missing key players as they focus on the likes of England, South Africa and India.

New Zealand assistant coach Trent Woodhill said Australia might live to regret the move if they do that against them.

"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 line-up in their recent two-test series against New Zealand, with James Pattinson, David Warner and Mitchell Starc all making their debuts, but that was largely down to injuries to the likes of Mitchell Johnson, Pat Cummins, Shane Watson and Ryan Harris.

Woodhill did not think Australia would rotate their batsmen.

"I think they're just dressing it up," he said. "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."

Woodhill said Australia ran the risk of defeat if they field a weakened side, although the Black Caps are not set to face Australia in a test series until 2015.

Cricket Australia's team performance chief Pat Howard told the Sydney Morning Herald it took a conservative approach in the series against New Zealand to give players a chance to get ready for the top-ranked Indians.

"We 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," Howard said.

"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."