Vettori gears up for ultimate test

Daniel Vettori is well aware of the size of the task facing New Zealand in Australia

New Zealand captain Daniel Vettori knows his team will face a far tougher challenge in their two-Test series against Australia than they did against Bangladesh.

The Black Caps won the series against Bangladesh 1-0 after the rain-affected second Test petered out into a draw in Mirpur.

"It will be two contrasting situations, obviously - the type of wickets there and Australia being the number one side in the world compared to Bangladesh being down at the bottom," Vettori said of next month’s trip.

After an early hiccup in the opening one-day international, New Zealand regained their composure to win the one-day series that preceded the Tests.

And Vettori admitted one of the main benefits of the tour to the sub-continent was getting time in the middle after more than three months without cricket.

"It's going to be a tough Test (in Australia) but this series mainly got guys back to cricket,” he said. “It gave the guys the chance to go and bat for a long time.

“It is better to have played on this tour than it is going to Australia with no cricket at all.”

Vettori refused to buy into the notion that Ricky Ponting's team are on a downward slide following their defeat by India in the second Test in Mohali.

"They are still the number one side in the world and they are going to be incredibly difficult to beat," he said.

"India played really well to beat them in the last game and from my experience of the Australian team they tend to come back stronger, so it's going to be a real hard ask for us to go there and try and win."

Vettori was content with his side’s efforts in Bangladesh, though they fell short of an expected clean sweep of both series.

He continued: "We came here to win the series. Obviously we didn't get a chance in this last game, which was a shortened Test match due to rain, but overall I'm pretty happy.

"Overall I think we showed that we were the better side and we probably would have come away with a 2-0 result (in the Tests) if there was more time."

Bangladesh's next assignment is in South Africa, where they will play three one-day internationals and two Tests.