Australia women's captain Karen Rolton predicts another close Rose Bowl Series against New Zealand

Karen Rolton - ICC Women's Player of the Year © Getty Images

Australia women's captain Karen Rolton believes her world champion team will again have to be at its brilliant best to beat New Zealand in this month's Rose Bowl Series to be played in Darwin, Australia.

The series opens with a Twenty20 match on 19 July and the 32-year-old South Australian, who won the inaugural ICC Women's Player of the Year award in Mumbai last year, reveals that it was her team's never-say-die attitude that in the past snatched victories from the jaws of defeat.

"Every time we play New Zealand, we are ready for a tough, hard-fought series," said Rolton. "The two teams really enjoy playing against each other. We can't wait to play this series as we really enjoy playing against one of the best teams in women's cricket.

"Each series we play, the result can go either way. I know if we don't play to our potential, the Kiwis can beat us. They push us to play our best cricket every game we play against them.

"Our team has a never-say-die attitude which seems to get us over the line in tight games. I think as a team we handle pressure very well, especially when things aren't going our way," said Rolton, who is 61 runs short of becoming only the third woman after compatriot Belinda Clark (4,844) and New Zealand's Debbie Hockley (4,064) to complete 4,000 ODI runs.

Australia and New Zealand have a history of producing some very close and thrilling matches.

In last year's Rose Bowl Series in Brisbane, Australia won the first game by one run, the second by one wicket and the third by five runs before sweeping the five-match series.

In March 2005 when the series was played in Perth, Australia won the opener by 87 runs and took an unassailable 2-0 lead by winning the second by seven runs. The home team then won the final game by three wickets.

In February 2002 in New Zealand, Australia won a one-sided series 3-0.

However, New Zealand have shown significant improvement over the years but has yet to learn to deliver the killing punch as evident from this year's Quadrangular Series in India, that also involved England. New Zealand qualified for the final after winning five league matches, including a six-wicket win over Australia, but lost the final to the world champions by six wickets in Chennai.

"This series will definitely be a close one as was in India and the Rose Bowl series in October last year. I don't think there is too much difference between the two teams, any team can win on the day," Rolton, who scored a superb century in the ICC Women's World Cup 2005 final at Centurion, said.

Rolton said her team was in a rebuilding phase and the Rose Bowl was a perfect series to prepare for the ICC Women's World Cup 2009.

"This series means a lot to me as every series does but it is now getting close to the next World Cup so each series is a good preparation for it. It is important to try as many players as we can to see who can perform against the best teams in the world so we can have the best performing players ready for action in 2009.

"The team has changed a lot since the ICC Women's World Cup 2005 and we now have a new coach in Lisa Keightley which is great. We have a lot of young and inexperienced players in the side, so after the last World Cup we are basically in a rebuilding phase."

Rolton said Australia was producing quality women cricketers because the team was performing well and also because of women's cricket addition to Cricket Australia. She added that the merger with the International Cricket Council (ICC) is benefitting the players.

"The Australian men's team does set high standards but I think we are producing quality women cricketers because our own women's team has been so successful for a long period of time.

"The women's team has lot more resources available to it since we amalgamated with Cricket Australia. We have camps at the Commonwealth Bank Centre of Excellence in Brisbane and we are able to access some of the best coaches in the world like Troy Cooley.

"With women's cricket now merged with the ICC, I think it can only benefit us. We are already starting to have more tours planned which is great and will help promote the game. With more tours and cricket played, it can only mean that countries will improve and the standard of cricket in every country will keep increasing with the passage of time," Rolton said.

Rolton feels Twenty20 format is one way of promoting women's cricket. "If we play Twenty20 games before the men's Twenty20 matches, it will give a big boost to women's cricket. In South Australia we did this at state level and we were able to play in front of quite a few people which was great."