KEY POINTS:
Kyle Mills reckons he's due some luck.
When he looks back on his career he can reel off events he's missed through injury: one World Cup, one Twenty20 World Cup, a tour to the West Indies, a tour to Pakistan and a bucketload of domestic first-class cricket.
He's had medical treatment for a bone chip removed from an ankle, a broken wrist, torn calf and groin muscles, a strained shoulder, torn hamstring and an intercostal strain.
And that's not counting the patella knee surgery last February, which sidelined him for seven months.
Frustrating? You bet. But the 28-year-old Auckland allrounder hopes the bad stuff is behind him.
"I'd like to hope so. I'd like to have that behind me. My body feels good at the moment, so I'll just pray I stay fit," he said from Perth yesterday where New Zealand are preparing for a festival one-dayer against a Chairman's XI at Lilac Hill on the outskirts of the city, ahead of their Twenty20 clash with Australia next Tuesday.
Mills has good reason for optimism. He won the player of the series award in the recent ODI series against South Africa with nine cheap wickets, including a career-best five for 25 at Durban.
Either side of the knee problem, Mills has taken 29 wickets in his last 12 ODIs and his 68 matches have yielded 98 wickets - that's 68 games spread out since his debut in the 2000-01 season.
Fully fit he is an integral part of the ODI setup and will figure prominently in the Chappell-Hadlee series starting next week.
Mills is puzzled at his success in South Africa, mainly because he felt his rhythm was not quite right.
"Having been out of the game quite a long time I was reasonably nervous heading into the tour.
"I can't put my finger on why it went well for me but I seem to have slotted back where I left off. I don't feel I've got my rhythm to tell the truth and I'm sure when I get more match time under my belt that will return and I'll feel more comfortable."
Which just leaves test cricket to sort out. Mills has only played seven tests, for 17 wickets, and he gives a clear sense of unfinished business.
"I see the next four years as big in my international career and really want make some inroads in the test team," he said.
Mills can understand why he is labelled an ODI man with a question mark over him as a long-term test player.
He's only played 48 first-class games, taking 140 wickets at a good 26.5 apiece, and averages a distinctly useful 30.69 with the bat. He missed plenty of Auckland matches while on New Zealand duty in his early years. But he knows he can prove the doubters wrong, given a chance.
"I can see where people are coming from with that line of thinking but I feel I can contribute in the test form," he said. "I swing the ball and feel I'm pretty useful with the bat and have something to offer the test team."
But right now it's Australia and ODI cricket which is occupying his mind. His key tip for combating the game's most formidable team is simple: stand your ground.
"You've got to be really confident because they're quite a hard team," he said. "They come at you hard with bat and ball and I think some teams get a bit stand-offish against them.
"That's when they really gather momentum and get on top. If you get in the mindset of standing up to these guys, try and put them on the back foot, they don't really like that confrontational stuff."
This is clearly a bloke rapt to be healthy and firing again and relishing the biggest challenge the game can offer.
