KEY POINTS:
Mark Gillespie knows the next few weeks are critical to his international ambitions.
With speed king Shane Bond battling more injury woes, and left-armer James Franklin out for the season with a left knee problem, there are four bowlers vying for the fast-bowling spots - Chris Martin, Kyle Mills, Gillespie and Michael Mason - and that's not including the domestic season's man of the moment, Andre Adams.
Martin, Mills and Gillespie are in favour right now, Mason dropping out for the Bangladesh ODI series.
England arrive at the start of February for the big tour of the season and New Zealand return in mid-year.
Gillespie wants to be part of both campaigns. He also wants to push himself as a first choice in both the ODI and test squads.
Gillespie copped some punishment in the recent ODI series in Australia - although he wasn't alone in that - but got a confidence-rebuilding three for 27 in the opening win over Bangladesh at Eden Park on Wednesday.
"This is an opportunity to cement myself in both sides and that's what I want to do and I believe I've got the skills to do it," he said.
The bouncy Wellington fast-medium bowler is 28 and has been round first-class cricket a deceptively long time. He made his debut in the 1999-00 season against Otago at Alexandra, and marked the occasion with five for 58 in Otago's second innings to set up a nine-wicket win for Wellington.
His first-class numbers are pretty impressive - 172 wickets in 44 games, at a tidy 25.01 average.
Last season he snared 19 wickets in four matches for Wellington but has only one test to his name - but it was one to savour, at least in personal terms.
At Centurion, on New Zealand's recent ill-fated tour, Gillespie took five for 136 in South Africa's only innings of a big victory.
In ODIs, he has 25 wickets from 23 games going into today's match at Napier's McLean Park, and 10 of those matches have been against the Aussies.
He acknowledged Australia is a tough proving ground, but it's where lessons must be absorbed.
"You're coming up against the best batters and if you get it wrong you go to the fence, as I did on many occasions," he ruefully admitted.
But he had something to smile about against Bangladesh this week. He was belted by their best batsman Mohammad Ashraful early but fought his way back determinedly.
Then this happened: first he had Mashrafe Mortaza caught in the deep off a no ball. That meant the next delivery, to Farhad Reza, was a free hit under the new rules.
Gillespie then yorked Reza, which is the most effective way of preventing a free slog to the boundary.
"If I'd got a wicket with the third ball it would have gone down as the greatest ever hat-trick, the one that doesn't exist," he quipped.
Gillespie knows the Bangladesh batsmen will be less brutal on anything wayward than the Australians, or South Africans. Get in the test squad to be named on Sunday for the two-test series and good figures could be on offer for the bowlers and a chance to keep his name in the forefront of the selectors' thinking for England. Gillespie knows the chance is in front of him. He's in the squad, rather than being on the outside knocking on the door.
"I've only got myself to blame if I don't take it," he said.
