Cricket: Aussie bowlers are cricket's real deal

By RICHARD BOOCK

DUNEDIN - Not only were the deficiencies of the New Zealand cricket team cruelly exposed by Australia the other day, but so were those of India, England and the West Indies.

Australia's runaway five-wicket win on Sunday has given more weight to the suggestion that New Zealand's much-acclaimed success over the past 14 months has had as much to do with the weakness of the opposition, as the strength of Stephen Fleming's team.

New Zealand's opening batsman Nathan Astle says the players are aware that the bar has now been raised to a far higher level. In terms of bowling in particular, all of the teams beaten by New Zealand were carrying below-strength bowling attacks, with India fielding the likes of Debashish Mohanty and Robin Singh jnr, England opting for Ed Giddins, Ronnie Irani and Dean Headley, and the Windies going with an ageing Courtney Walsh, an erratic Franklyn Rose and Nehemiah Perry.

Astle said yesterday that Australia's attack was far better than anything he'd seen for a long while, and stressed the need for the New Zealand batsmen to be more patient and circumspect in tomorrow's third ODI at Carisbrook.

"Their attack is much better than the West Indies, that's for sure," said Astle, who lasted just two balls in Sunday's match at Eden Park.

"We've just got to realise that we don't get as many balls to hit and that they're going to be attacking us a lot more than we've been used to. There needs to be more patience and we need to be more selective about how we attack."

The 28-year-old right-hander said there was no need for New Zealand to beat themselves up too much over Sunday's result as the side had played consistently well in the ODI arena over the past year or so.

"The only way guys like Glenn McGrath and Brett Lee know how to bowl is to attack you and get you out. We've simply got to deal with that from now on."