Australia women arrive today for three One-Day Internationals

The Australian women's cricket team, the Southern Stars, fly into Christchurch later today looking for a clean sweep in the trans-Tasman Rosebowl series against the world champion CLEAR White Ferns.

Australia needs just one more win to secure the Rosebowl for 2002 after winning the first three of six One-Day Internationals in a testing home-and-away series.

Australian captain Belinda Clark has demanded a better batting effort from her side in New Zealand after it was her bowlers who did most of the damage across the Tasman.

Australia comfortably won the opening match at the Adelaide Oval by 53 runs last Wednesday with medium-pacer Julie Hayes taking a miserly 2-20 in her 10 overs.

The next match, a daynighter at Adelaide last Thursday, was much closer with Australia chasing 164. After crashing to 141/7 Australia's tail-end batsmen then got the home side through to a three wicket victory with just 2.3 overs remaining. Earlier Cathryn Fitzpatrick, the fastest bowler in women's cricket, had kept a check on the CLEAR White Ferns' innings taking 4-15 off 10 overs.

In the third and last match on the Australia leg played at the MCG on Saturday, Hayes took a career-best 3-17 off 10 overs at the MCG as Australia won convincingly by 57 runs.

Now the Australians are looking to blot out memories of the 2000 CricInfo Women's World Cup, which they lost by four painful runs at Lincoln 14 months ago. The remaining three One-Day Internationals in New Zealand will be played at the same venue, starting with the potential Rosebowl decider on Saturday.

The Australians arrive at Christchurch airport at 11.35pm tonight on Qantas flight QF195 from Melbourne.

The team will practise at Lincoln tomorrow, Tuesday 26 February, from 10am to noon. The Australians then play two one-day warm-up matches against a Canterbury XI at the Christ's College Cricket Ground, Hagley Park, on Wednesday and Thursday.