New Zealand captain Stephen Fleming has admitted that his team struggles to cope with Australian fast bowler Brett Lee's pace.
Lee looks set for a recall to the Australian Test team for the first game of the three-match series that gets underway next week at Christchurch's Jade Stadium, having taken seven wickets so far in the first three one-day clashes between the two teams.
The tourists have already wrapped up the five-match one-day series, having taken an unassailable 3-0 lead, and with Lee vying with Michael Kasprowicz for a place in the Test side, Fleming's admission could help his cause.
"In our competition we don't have a lot of pace bowlers operating in the 140s, let alone the 150 area - so it is a big jump," Fleming told The Daily Telegraph. "There's only really two in the world doing it, Brett and Shoaib (Akhtar)."
"It's not something that comes along every series. Lee is bowling pretty quick and doing what any good fast bowler should do - he's unsettling and bowling with intensity."
Meanwhile Black Caps coach John Bracewell says Lee could in the future face legal action after at the weekend striking Brendon McCullum with a waist-high full toss in Auckland on Saturday.
"It is the fourth time this season that he's beamed one of our guys. He's been apologetic every time he's done it," Bracewell told ABC Sport.
"He was apologetic when he came round the wicket and did it to Chris Harris, and Paul Wiseman, and he's apologised twice to Brendon. I'm not sure if he apologised to (Pakistan's Abdul) Razzaq. That's a lot of apologies."
"I think it's going to be more serious if it happens in Australia with the Jarrod McCracken call, if it does hit somebody," Bracewell added of a recent Victorian court decision to award former rugby league international McCracken compensation for a tackle that prematurely ended his career.
"That's Australia law, the precedent's been set there which is pretty dangerous for your country, not mine."
But Lee says Saturday's incident was nothing more than an accident, and he knows what it is like to be on the receiving end after Razzaq was taken out of the Pakistan attack for doing the same thing to him twice in a VB Series match.
"Unfortunately the ball came out and it hit him, thank God it didn't hurt him," Lee said, blaming dewy conditions for losing his balance as he delivered the ball. "I know when I was beamed accidentally by Razzaq your first impression is to go crazy."
"He (McCullum) lost it there for 15-20 seconds and I went up and apologised and said 'I would never mean to do that'."