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HOBART - How's this for confidence: Aussie batsman Michael Clarke reckons it won't matter who New Zealand pick for today's Tri-series showdown if his team play anywhere near their potential.
Fresh from Australia's swaggering eight-wicket win over England on Friday night, Clarke yesterday paid his respects to the
New Zealand one-day side, in much the same way as someone might pay their respects to a recently deceased relative.
"They [New Zealand] are a very different team to England but I think our mindset will stay the same," he said. "We'll continue to work as hard as we can on our game and concentrate on what we need to do to be 100 per cent.
"We needn't worry too much about the opposition because if we're playing the best cricket we can, I don't think it matters who they are."
Clarke's confidence was based not only on Australia's handsome opening night win over England, his own contribution of 57 not out, or the clean-sweep in the Ashes, but also on the fact that his side had lost just two of their past 18 matches against New Zealand, dating back to 2002.
The only setbacks for Australia were the inaugural Chappell-Hadlee ODI at Melbourne in 2004 and New Zealand's then-record run-chase a year later in Christchurch. The most recent meeting, in the Champions Trophy semifinal at Chandigarh, ended with Ricky Ponting's side strolling to a 34-run win.
Clarke, Australia's new No 4 after filling the vacancy left by Damien Martyn, hailed his side's overall performance on Friday night but emphasised the ease of the win had more to do with the initial work from the bowlers, than the coup de grace delivered by the batsmen.
"Our batting and development of partnerships is a huge part of our ODI game but we still need to bowl well, and I think we did that [against England].
"We set the game up by restricting England to 242.That gave our batsmen a good chance to get in and take their time."
The 25-year-old right-hander has played an impressive hand in Australia's most recent 14 ODIs against New Zealand, averaging 45.90 from 13 innings, most of them while batting down the order at No 6 or No 7.
He attempted to play down the tone of his earlier remarks by suggesting New Zealand could extend Australia - although he didn't sound convincing.
"New Zealand are a very good one-day team. They always seem to step up against Australia. We've had some very tight battles and I'm certain they'll be looking forward to playing us, and it'll be a very tight series,"he said.
New Zealand skipper Stephen Fleming yesterday confirmed that Daniel Vettori would slide down to No 7 for today's contest at Bellerive and that one of the batsmen - probably Hamish Marshall - would miss the cut.
The change means Nathan Astle and Brendon McCullum are likely to be reunited at the top of the order with Fleming and Ross Taylor coming in at No 3 and No 4 respectively. They will be followed by Peter Fulton and the recalled Craig McMillan.
James Franklin, Shane Bond and Mark Gillespie seem assured of being retained, leaving the only debate over whether to play Michael Mason or Andre Adams as the fourth front-line paceman.
The Bellerive Oval pitch, which yesterday looked much like a wide strip of wheaten-coloured particle board, is expected to favour the batsmen and offer little turn, a scenario that has made Fleming uneasy about including Jeetan Patel.
"It's a pretty good looking surface and you'd think that, with two games on it, Jeetan would possibly come more into contention for the second game [against England on Tuesday]," he said. "There is a feeling that taking pace off the ball is perhaps the best way to go against Australia but, if the wicket is good and the ball's just sliding on, it is probably just as effective to use guys like Nathan Astle and Craig McMillan."
The teams
New Zealand: Brendon McCullum, Nathan Astle, Stephen Fleming , Ross Taylor, Peter Fulton, Craig McMillan, Daniel Vettori, James Franklin, Shane Bond, Mark Gillespie, Michael Mason, Andre Adams, Jeetan Patel, Hamish Marshall.
Australia: Adam Gilchrist, Matthew Hayden, Ricky Ponting (c), Michael Hussey, Michael Clarke, Andrew Symonds, Cameron White, Brad Hogg, Brett Lee, Mitchell Johnson, Stuart Clark, Nathan Bracken, Glenn McGrath.
