Cricket: Fleming blocks out Australia talk

It's official -- New Zealand cricket captain Stephen Fleming has banished any more talk of how good Australia are for the rest of their six-week tour.

Fleming yesterday made a point of refusing to talk up the world champions when asked about their form ahead of today's second one-day international here, with New Zealand already trailing 0-1 in the series.

"It's not about Australia it's about us, and probably by the end of it I'm going to get sick of talking about Australia," Fleming said.

"The question should be how do we handle them, not what do they do.

"I'm not going to talk about Australia's positives any more through this tour, it's about our camp and what we need to do to compete."

New Zealand coach John Bracewell earlier spoke of how the theme of this tour was trying to block out Australia's invincible air with their array of world-class players.

"They understand we're trying to play a number, a faceless person and the ball," Bracewell said.

Fleming has insisted New Zealand have broken through the psychological barrier against the world champions, despite only winning one of their previous 10 one-day clashes going into today.

The past three have been close, with New Zealand scraping home in Melbourne in December before being pipped by 15 runs in Sydney then by 10 runs in Wellington on Saturday.

Familiarity in the past year has helped, with the long overdue advent of the annual Chappell-Hadlee Trophy series which was stranded at 1-1 when rain ruined the Brisbane decider in December.

"We've only started playing them more in the past 12 months and had some pretty good runs in the one-day game.

"But we're saying to the players you can't push it as an individual just because you're up against quality players... just go out there and let it happen."

Australia meanwhile are keen to focus on the man not the ball, with captain Ricky Ponting paying New Zealand spinner Daniel Vettori a big compliment yesterday.

He said his batsmen were happy to block out Vettori in the one-day series and concede minimal runs to him, as long as he didn't take wickets and they could attack the other bowlers.

Vettori was in top form on Saturday and unlucky to end with no wicket for 33 off 10 overs.

"We've identified him as probably their key bowler and he's done well against Australia in the past," Ponting said.

"We think if we're patient enough with him, are able to rotate the strike well and not give him many wickets is probably the key for us.

"Maybe it increases the pressure to score runs at the other end, but we also feel we probably can do that."

Bracewell, the former test offspinner who nursed Vettori through his crisis of confidence in the first half of last year, was in no doubt as to Vettori's value in coming weeks.

"Dan bowled absolutely brilliantly (in Wellington), I thought he was all over them like a rash. It vindicated our decision not to play him in the Twenty20.

"It really gave us a bit of a buzz, me in particular," Bracewell said.

- NZPA