Cricket: Southee keen to test rivalry

Tim Southee's looking forward to rejoining his Black Caps teammates.Photo / Brett Phibbs

Northland pace bowler Tim Southee is looking forward to getting back-in-black.

Notching up some time at the crease for the Northern Knights last week, which included an impressive five-wicket haul on day one, the 26-year-old is now looking forward to rejoining his Black Caps teammates as they depart for the Australian test series today.

"It was sort of a good hit-out last week with the Knights, so I think it was just good to get out and play a competitive game of cricket.

"It was a perfect sort of hit-out getting plenty of time in the field and I managed to get through a fair few overs. It's good to be back playing some cricket after a long time off training."

Left at home to rest as the Black Caps embarked on their recent tour to Zimbabwe and South Africa, an opportunity to help keep New Zealand's growing test-series slate intact is at the forefront of Southee's mind leading into the transtasman bouts.

"It's no different to any other test series, but there's a few unfamiliar faces that there probably won't be a lot of information on," Southee said of the fresh-faced Australian side.

"I think it's just continuing what we've got going as a test team ... we haven't lost a series for I think 7-8 series.

"We're going there to win, we've been playing some pretty good test cricket of late, there's a few guys that are showing glimpses of form ... it's not an easy place to go, and history shows that we haven't won a series there in 30 years so we're definitely not getting too far ahead of ourselves - we'll take each day as it comes."