Cricket: NZ's plans irrelevant, says Ponting

How's this for confidence - Ricky Ponting reckons that if both teams play to their potential in the transtasman one-day series, Australia have nothing to fear from New Zealand.

The Australian captain has wasted no time in accepting the favouritism for the five-match series, suggesting that if his team live up to their world championship billing, they will effectively render their hosts helpless.

Ponting not only questioned New Zealand's counter-strategy capabilities, he also made it clear that he believed Stephen Fleming's team could only succeed if Australia played below their best.

"They [New Zealand] can have as many plans as they want, but if our plans are spot on then their's are almost irrelevant," he said.

New Zealand square off against Ponting's side in the opening one-dayer at Wellington today, launching arguably the biggest one-day series outside the World Cup; the showdown between the world's No 1 and 2 ranked sides.

Adding even more drama to the contest is memory of the drawn Chappell-Hadlee series before Christmas, when New Zealand snatched a win at Melbourne, Australia evened the slate at Sydney, and rain had the final word at Brisbane.

Asked yesterday whether he thought New Zealand were the best in the world at negating an opposition's batting tactics, Ponting replied in the negative and claimed that would be stretching things too far.

He said while Australia's batting came under fire for a less than top-drawer effort in the VB Series finals, there had been much discussion about solutions and that he was confident about the team's ability to win close contests.

"It tends to happen a lot to us," he said. "When we get into a scrap or dogfight, we tend to come out on top - just as we did in both the VB Series finals."

The good news for the New Zealanders was that Ponting deemed them worthy of their No 2 ranking, saying the Chappell-Hadlee Series had made his team acutely aware of the challenge they face over the next fortnight.

"What they have done over the last 12 to 18 months indicates [that they are worthy No 2 seeds]," he said.

"They're a good side and they're going to be hard to beat on their home turf.

"We had two great games in the Chappell-Hadlee series back in Australia and we know we have to play at our best to win."

Ponting wouldn't be drawn on his probable XI for today's match, but hinted that Michael Clark may resume as an opening batsman, at the expense of a recovered Matthew Hayden.

He said it was only a couple of games ago that Hayden was left out of the team and not much had changed in that time.

Fleming said yesterday there was no doubting the quality of the Australians, but that at the moment he was happy to leave someone else to sing their praises

"I'm not going to talk them up," he said. "I respect them and think they're wonderful cricketers but I'm not going to elaborate on why they're so good."

New Zealand haven't lost a home series for the past four years, and Fleming said the Australian challenge would provide a clear indication of where his team was in terms of the one-day game.

"They're by far the best-ranked side in the world, and we're No 2, so it's mouth-watering," he said.

"We've been sitting on it for a while, thinking about it for some time, and now it's about physically having the courage and determination to take on a good side.

"We think we've got a good side and we've certainly got belief in our one-day game."

Nathan Astle is the only availability issue, following a stomach ailment that ruled him out of Thursday's Twenty20 match.

NZ V Australia

FIRST ONE-DAYER

Westpac Stadium, Wellington

Live on Sky Sport 1 from 1.30pm today

The squads:

New Zealand (from): Stephen Fleming (c), Nathan Astle, Mathew Sinclair, Scott Styris, Hamish Marshall, Craig McMillan, Chris Cairns, Brendon McCullum, Daniel Vettori, Jeff Wilson, Kyle Mills, Daryl Tuffey, Andre Adams

Australia (from): Ricky Ponting (c), Adam Gilchrist, Michael Clark, Matthew Hayden, Michael Hussey, Damien Martyn, Andrew Symonds, James Hopes, Brad Hogg, Brett Lee, Jason Gillespie, Glenn McGrath, Michael Kasprowicz