Bond rethinking plans

Although he has taken 24 wickets in just seven matches against Australia at an average of 11.87, New Zealand fast bowler Shane Bond believes he will need to come up with new plans for the in-form Australian batsmen if he wishes to continue his success against his trans-Tasman opponents in this summer’s Commonwealth Bank Series.

New Zealand play their first match of the series on Sunday, taking on the hosts in Hobart, and Bond would like to pick up where he left off in the 2002 series in which he was leading wicket-taker and played a huge role in knocking the Australians out of their own tournament. However, he says that he can’t keep doing the same thing against such high-class batsmen and expect to get the same results, and will try some new tricks in order to continue his excellent record, particularly against Ricky Ponting, whose wicket he has taken six times.

Bond expects that Ponting and his team-mates will have worked on a strategy to counter his pace and swing, and he says he hopes to adapt his own bowling to match their tactics and, he hopes, continue his dominance over the Australian batsmen.