Khawaja upbeat about Aussies' prospects

The good news for Australia’s newest leg-spinner Adam Zampa, on top of the delight that will come with making his international debut against New Zealand at Wellington tomorrow, is he will be as familiar with the surrounds as most of his teammates.

Captain Steve Smith and his deputy David Warner are the only members of Australia’s XI for tomorrow’s must-win Chappell-Hadlee Trophy match who have experienced playing at international level at the capital’s Westpac Stadium, that being a T20 match there six years ago.

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The sobering caveat for Zampa is that he will make his maiden appearance in Australia colours practising one of the game’s most difficult bowling arts on a ground that boasts some of the shortest square boundaries on the world circuit.

Upon arriving at the multi-purpose football and cricket arena for a brief familiarisation visit and fielding practice this morning, Warner noted – in the wake of Australia’s loss on the claustrophobically small Eden Park rugby field at Auckland – it was nice to be back on a proper-sized cricket ground.

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But the expansive look of the saucer-shaped venue, dubbed ‘The Cake Tin’ by many locals, is deceptive and according to the ground’s website the square boundaries as set for cricket matches are a mere 65.7m to the west and an even skinnier 57.8m to the east.

Given that the blow landed by Black Caps opener Martin Guptill at Eden Park last Wednesday, which saw a ball land atop the ground’s North Stand for the first time in local memory, was recorded as travelling 113m, Zampa might have reason for a more restless night than your average impending debutant.

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Especially if he recalls that Guptill scored an unbeaten 237 from 163 balls in his most recent ODI at Westpac Stadium (against the West Indies in last year’s World Cup) during which he became just the second batsman to land a ball on the roof of the towering grandstands there.

After it was initially done by current Black Caps batting coach Craig McMillan, who heaped that indignity on Australia medium-pacer Andrew Symonds when the teams played an ODI at Wellington in 2005.

But having held his nerve and earned his stripes bowling for South Australia, the Adelaide Strikers and more recently the Melbourne Stars in the Matador One-Day Cup and KFC Big Bash League competitions, Zampa seems unlikely to lose too much sleep over the challenge that awaits.

Drafted into the Australia XI following the injury to late-innings bowling specialist James Faulkner, Zampa has been touted as a future Australia representative since 2010 when the New South Wales-born leg-spinner was part of the squad that won the Under-19 World Cup in New Zealand.

That group, captained by Mitchell Marsh and which included fellow ODI squad members Josh Hazlewood and Kane Richardson, did not play matches in Wellington during their successful campaign.

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So Zampa will be forced to learn quickly about the vagaries of the small NZ grounds designed to host football codes, and the ‘tennis ball bounce’ that characterises their drop-in pitches.

And that should not prove beyond the highly-competitive 23-year-old given his former NSW teammate Usman Khawaja today likened Zampa – who has been forced to bide his time for an Australia cap behind fellow leggies Cameron Boyce, James Muirhead and Fawad Ahmed – to a young Steve Smith.

“He’s a good bowler Zampa,” said Khawaja, who has also been called into the starting XI for Saturday's crucial ODI against the Black Caps three years after his previous ODI appearance.

“I’ve played a lot of cricket with him at New South Wales growing up, seeing him as a youngster.

“He used to bowl like Steven Smith and try to bat like Steven Smith and looked a bit like Steven Smith as well, so he’s actually come a long way in the last five or six years.

“He’s a very good leg-spinner, got a lot of skills and he’s a confident little chap and I like him.

“I like to play with him and play against him so I’m looking forward to his debut.”

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Although he is best known among audiences in Australia for his recent BBL deeds (a last-ball six to win a match for the Strikers in Perth in BBL|04, and this summer’s memorable bowler’s end run-out when the ball smashed into his nose before hitting the stumps, accompany some excellent returns with the ball) his performances in other formats have also been consistently strong.

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In the domestic 50-over competition he has taken 30 wickets at a tidy 33.23 (with a strike rate of a wicket every six-and-a-half overs and conceding less than a run per ball) from 22 matches.

And in first-class cricket for NSW and now South Australia, Zampa has 50 wickets from 21 matches and also a top score of 74 to show he’s no bunny with the bat.

While admitting that the sight of a greenhorn leg-spin bowler operating at a ground where any error in length invites the risk of a bowler being put into the crowd could be very tempting to NZ’s top-order batters, Black Caps allrounder Corey Anderson also sounded a note of caution.

As the Australians have discovered on their previous two visits to the boutique-sized Eden Park, where NZ’s bowlers have knocked over the visitors twice for around 150 in each innings, the temptation of short boundaries can prove a double-edged sword.

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Having rehearsed their straight hitting prior to last year’s World Cup fixture in Auckland with an eye to cashing in on the short boundaries down the ground, the Australians were undone by the immaculate length and late swing gained the Black Caps’ seamers in that match.

And again on Wednesday when they crashed to a 159-run defeat.

“I think the nature of what wickets and grounds are in New Zealand, if you play to the ground size you seem to get caught out,” said Anderson, who was among the Kiwi pace bowlers who spent considerable time working on landing their yorkers at training in Wellington today.

“We’ve seen a lot of touring teams go to Eden Park as well and they look to hit straight and all of a sudden they’re hitting boundaries square and getting caught square.

“It’s very similar here at Westpac (Stadium) as well.

“It’s still pretty short and square – it’s just like the dimensions have been swapped around (from Eden Park) the other way.

“That’s the beauty of being the home team – they generally know how to do it.”