Shane Bond thinks Australia has been having an easy time of things at home, but an angry Tim Nielsen has returned fire by warning the New Zealand paceman he won’t find things easy on Friday.

The Nielsen-coached Australia Twenty20 squad arrived in Wellington on Wednesday for a two-match series starting on Friday in the country’s capital, followed by Sunday’s clash in Christchurch.

Five one-dayers and two Tests are also scheduled, with Bond likely to be a major threat to Australia in the first half of the tour, having retired from Tests.

Bond has already made his mark, saying earlier this week: “Even though (Australia) have played bloody well they’ve had a relatively easy run in terms of the pressure they’ve been put under.

“Hopefully we can put them under some huge pressure and I think if we do that we’ve got a huge chance,” Bond added.

Nielsen’s normally smiling face turned to stone during his press conference at Wellington airport when Bond’s comments were put to him.

“Did he? We’ve had a pretty good run and I’m not sure who they have been playing lately but they’d want to front up pretty well then, wouldn’t they,” Nielsen said, in an obvious reference to New Zealand’s modest effort in beating the struggling Bangladesh by 121 runs in a Test in Hamilton a week ago.

Nielsen had some warnings of his own for the Kiwis, talking up Australia’s pace-bowling arsenal.

“He (Shaun Tait) will pose problems for all the batters if he’s bowling at the pace he’s been bowling lately and can do that for all four overs in a Twenty20 game,” Nielsen said.

“He’s hitting 160 (km/h) from the first ball of his spell, pretty well, and maintaining that.

“That’s hard for any batsman. Nobody likes facing fast bowling and that’s one of our strengths at the moment, having him and Dirk Nannes above 150 and the likes of Mitchell Johnson coming on after them.

“We feel as though we’ve got some exceptional talent.”

Australia on Tuesday completed an unbeaten home summer against West Indies and Pakistan, but the Michael Clarke-led T20 side face a fresh challenge against the confident Kiwis.

Third on the Test rankings and on top in the one-dayers, Australia have struggled at T20 World Cup level.

Australia’s three T20 wins over Pakistan and West Indies this summer snapped a five-game losing streak in T20 Internationals and Nielsen says the Kiwis should watch out.

“I’d like to think that we’re as good a side as there is going around at the moment. We feel as though we’re improving every day we play, and we’ve introduced some new players,” he said.

“As we saw (on Tuesday against West Indies in Sydney), there’s not too many players in the world that can get 50 off 18 balls (like opener David Warner).”

Warner, who is aiming to lead Australia’s batting fireworks in New Zealand after slapping 67 from 29 balls on Tuesday, says plans for a T20 world title in the Caribbean in May are on track.

“We’ve got a very good team at the moment, we’ve got a good structure there,” he said.

“We’ve got perfect momentum going into the World Cup.”

© AAP 2012

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