Cricket: Tough tour good for us says Bracewell

Turbulent it might have been, but New Zealand's tour of Australia was not without its silver lining.

Having shared the one-day series after being crushed in the tests, New Zealand will soon begin preparations for the upcoming home commitments against Sri Lanka, who play their first warm-up match at New Plymouth on Tuesday week.

Still fired up after the deciding one-day international against Australia was rained out on Friday night, New Zealand will remain in limited-overs mode for the five-match series against Marvan Atapattu's squad, beginning with the first ODI on Boxing Day.

The contest is not for the faint-hearted.

Whoever wins the series will confirm their position as the second-ranked side on the ICC rankings, and, in New Zealand's case, enable them to challenge No 1 seeds Australia in the series after Christmas.

Stretched to the limit in the inaugural but ultimately washed-out Chappell-Hadlee Series, New Zealand couldn't have imagined a tougher build-up to their home campaigns, and should be a more potent side for the experience.

That was the view of coach John Bracewell after the Brisbane weather put paid to the decider on Friday.

Bracewell said the way in which the players pulled themselves clear of the test series setback to give themselves a chance of winning the one-day trophy wasn't the first occasion in which they'd shown such character.

"It felt a bit like deja vu in terms of the English tour last winter," he said. "It was another of those ebb and flow-type tours and I thought the guys showed a lot of character to emerge the way they did."

He said far from ruing the events that saw the side taken to the limit in every outing, he thought the experience would prove helpful for the series against Sri Lanka and beyond.

"We've got an extremely tough summer coming up in which we play the world's No 1 and 2 teams at home, and with that in mind, Australia's been a very healthy experience.

"It's not only a tough place to tour, it's also the best place to tour in terms of hardening up, and I'm sure the players have learned a lot of lessons from it."

He believed that, like New Zealand's tour to Africa in 2000, when the squad suffered an astonishing injury toll and were littered with wet-behind-the-ears replacements, the visit to Australia could later pay a handsome dividend.

Then, a stream of casualties saw the side lose in Zimbabwe and South Africa, but still furthered the development of players such as Daryl Tuffey, Chris Martin and Hamish Marshall.

"It could be a watershed tour for us," Bracewell said of the Australian experience. "It promoted some of the players who are likely to be the future of our team."

In particular, he was delighted about the coming of age of players such as Kyle Mills, Marshall, Jacob Oram and Brendon McCullum.

Meanwhile, Atapattu is expecting the recalled Russell Arnold to play a key role in his side's late innings tactics when the tour starts with a Boxing Day ODI at Eden Park.

"I consider Russell a great finisher who reads the game well," Atapattu said in yesterday's Sunday Observer, out of Colombo.

"He was out of the team because of poor form. But since then, he's done tremendously well in the domestic premier tournament, averaging the best in both the one-dayers and three-day matches."

Sri Lanka in NZ

December 26, ODI, Eden Park

December 29, ODI, Napier

January 2, ODI, Queenstown

January 4, ODI, Christchurch

January 8, ODI, Wellington

January 15-19, first test, Hamilton

January 22-26, second test, Wellington