Cairns and Oram ready to rumble

Chrsi Cairns: beating Australia would be 'bloody fantastic' © Getty Images

Allrounders Chris Cairns and Jacob Oram have said that they are fit and ready for the start of the Chappell-Hadlee series this Saturday. The pair came through an intensive training session at Auckland today unscathed. Cairns missed the recent one-day series in South Africa with back problems, while Oram, who is suffering from a similar injury, only played as a specialist batsman.

Cairnsleft New Zealand's tour of Africa before it had really begun, returning home in a bid to strengthen his back at the country's high performance centre at Lincoln University. "Watching my team lose was hard to take, especially when you're sitting on your backside half away around the world," he admitted. "On the other hand it allowed me to get back and play some cricket and strip my game apart and re-build it over the last couple of months and just get a little bit of bowling under my belt.

"It's a massive gulf between what I have been playing pre-season friendlies and what I'm about to step into on Saturday - but being physically fit does give you confidence psychologically. There's still a fair few butterflies going up against the Australians, but gosh, who can turn that down?"

Oram has also been dogged by back trouble, but he is desperate to perform well against Australia. "I've played eight one-dayers against them and been neither here nor there really, so I know that I've got a point to prove against them in the one-day game."

Cairns added that after New Zealand's success against Australia in rugby union and league, beating them at cricket would be "bloody fantastic".