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New Zealand’s cricketers are looking forward to pitting their wits against the in-form Pakistani spin attack in the forthcoming three-match Test series according to bowling coach Shane Bond.

Pakistan are currently in a strong position to beat Australia 2-0 in their ongoing contest thanks largely to the effectiveness of their spinners.

Bond admitted the Pakistanis will be tough opponents on the dry pitches of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) which will help slow bowlers.

“I think this is a really good challenge for us,” Bond told reporters.

“It has been a good last year for us and Pakistan are also playing well. This is going to be real good measure of us as a team and so we are looking forward to it,” added the former bowling ace.

The Black Caps will start the tour with a three-day warm-up game against Pakistan ‘A’ — a second string team — in Sharjah on Monday.

The first Test starts in Abu Dhabi on November 9.

“Pakistan as a team have been difficult for a long time. They are in their own conditions though they are not in Pakistan,” said Bond, who played 18 Tests in which he took 87 wickets and 82 one-day games, taking 147 wickets.

“So Pakistan in these kind of conditions are very tough and there are extra young players coming through we have seen.

“We are coming in fresh and Pakistan will have played two Test matches and this will see them play five in a row.”

The second Test between Pakistan and New Zealand will be in Dubai from November 17 followed by the third in Sharjah from November 26.

They will then play two Twenty20 games followed by five one-day internationals against Pakistan.

It is a lofty claim but the 17-year-old from Zagreb has already taken giant strides this year, collecting some notable scalps to crack the world’s top 100 — the youngest player to do so since Rafa Nadal burst through in 2003.

Coric’s victory over 14-times grand slam champion Nadal in the quarter-finals of the Swiss Indoor tournament last week capped a remarkable 12 months for the latest player to roll off the Croatian production line.

In April he beat former Wimbledon semi-finalist Jerzy Janowicz in five sets in a Davis Cup clash in Poland, in August he qualified for the U.S. Open before beating Lukas Rosol in the first round and a few weeks later he won his first ATP Challenger title in Turkey.

In reaching the semis in Basel his ranking rose to 93, a rise of more than 400 places from last year.

Yet, despite all that, the remarkably self-assured teenager took the bold decision to split with his coach of two years, Briton Ryan Jones, before the Swiss Indoors.

Asked why he had made the decision, Coric spoke with the authority of a player mapping out his destiny.

“It has been a very good two years but we had some small disagreements and when you are travelling for two years with the same guy you can get a bit stuck,” Coric told Reuters in an interview.

“I felt it was not as good as before so I thought I shouldn’t wait for the bad times to come, I’m gonna find a new coach and I want to do it now.

“If you want to become number one you need to stay on top of everything.”

There will be no shortage of applicants for the post but until a new coach is named Coric will continue having daily chats with former Wimbledon champion and Croatian hero Goran Ivanisevic, a man he calls his mentor.

“I talk to Goran every day, he has been a great influence on my career so far,” said the teenager. “He’s a fighter, like all the Croatian players, and it’s great to hear his advice.”

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Marin Cilic, the player Ivanisevic guided to the U.S. Open title this year, is also a big fan of Coric.

“He’s an amazing talent, it’s amazing spirit that he has, and he’s a big fighter,” Cilic told Reuters at the Paris Masters this week.

“He has got something in himself that you can’t create, something that God gives you, he doesn’t take no for an answer.”

Coric had just been crowned U.S. Open junior champion last year when he was called up for Croatia’s Davis Cup tie against Britain and a baptism of fire against 2013 Wimbledon winner Andy Murray.

While the 6-3 6-0 6-3 defeat looks an emphatic beating on paper, those who witnessed the 16-year-old in action for the first time were busy scribbling down the name of Coric as a future champion in the making.

“It was a great experience,” he said. “In the third set I had a 3-1 lead and a point for 4-1. I think at that moment I realised I could play with these guys and I realised what I needed to do.”

Firstly he got stronger, spending two hours a day in the gym to help prepare his 6-foot-1 frame for life on tour.

“It’s very physical tennis but I think I have been doing very well on that aspect for the past year now so I have got much stronger and bigger and can cope in a physical way,” said Coric.

Apart from 19-year-old Australian Nick Krygios, Coric is the only teenager in the top 100 in the rankings but if proof were needed that he belonged there his 6-2 7-6 defeat of an ailing Nadal provided it.

The Spaniard, who decided to end his season after that defeat because of appendicitis, was not at his best but the Croatian was ruthless against the man he spent seven days training with in Mallorca at the end of last year.

“I was nervous before but at the same time I knew I had to show not too much respect, I needed to be normal,” he said.

Coric’s style and demeanour, not dissimilar to world number one Novak Djokovic, oozes confidence and he says he wants to reach the top 50 next year.

“I can’t stop here, I have to work to achieve something bigger,” he said.

“(Having people know who I am) is a good pressure. I know I will have to train harder now, put in more work on the court. But I’m looking forward to next year.”

(Additional reporting by Pritha Sarkar, editing by Tony Jimenez)

In a war that engulfed the world, the young Anzac nations were the hardest hit, forging an unbreakable brotherhood between them.

Those were the reflections of Prime Minister Tony Abbott and his New Zealand counterpart John Key at the most solemn of the centenary commemorations in Albany, Western Australia, on Saturday – 100 years to the day since the first convoy of troops departed for World War I.

The war to end all wars proved a baptism of fire for the two colonies, Mr Abbott told the thousands of spectators near the spot where those servicemen set sail.

“The scale of sacrifice and loss was beyond anything imaginable,” Mr Abbott said.

“From a population of under five million (in Australia), 417,000 enlisted.

“61,000 never came home.

“Of Australian men aged 18 to 42, almost one in two served in uniform. Of those who served overseas, almost one in five died on active service.

“It was sacrifice on a stupendous scale and it was a sacrifice shared by our neighbour New Zealand.”

Mr Key said it was the nations’ coming of age, which suffered the most of all who took part on the bloody conflict.

“As the New Zealanders’ vessels met the Australian vessels, the cheering and counter-cheering, the Maori war cries and the answering cooees would have moved a stoic,” he said.

“Young Australia was welcoming young New Zealand … in the first meeting of those brothers in arms, soon to be known by a glorious name.

“And the very first part of their legend was written here.”

Mr Key said the growing number of people honouring the Anzac legend was testament that their memory would not be forgotten.

“We give thanks to the privileges we enjoy today because of their efforts,” he said.

An awkward run-in between Blake Garvey and his ex-fiancee Sam Frost had tongues wagging on Derby Day, while Hollywood A-lister Chris Hemsworth played the strong, silent type.

Australian and international stars braved Saturday’s wind and rain in their monochrome best to party in Flemington’s famous Birdcage.

Such was the frivolity it was a wonder anyone even realised the Chris Waller-trained Preferment had won the Victoria Derby over on the racetrack.

In the Swisse marquee, real estate agent and male strip company owner Garvey (the Bachelor) was playing happy families with Terry, the father of his new girlfriend and third-placed bachelorette, Louise Pillidge.

Pillidge was at a wedding, which was probably a good thing given Frost, who Garvey proposed to on the show before promptly dumping her, rocked up at the tent before making a swift exit.

At Johnnie Walker’s House of Walker marquee, Hemsworth put on his best strong, silent performance.

Fans and the media gathered for nearly an hour to see Thor, but when the dapper 31-year-old finally emerged on the balcony he didn’t say a word, posing serious-faced for 60 seconds before retreating.

Also turning heads was race day regular Jennifer Hawkins, who sizzled on her 10th year in the Melbourne Cup Carnival Birdcage.

She wore a sexy but classy figure-hugging black lace Alex Perry dress with a plunging neckline.

Megan Gale rocked her new-mum glow as she and her AFL player partner Shaun Hampson mingled with fellow models Ashley Hart and Montana Cox.

Italian designer and brand ambassador Margherita Missoni hung out at the Lavazza marquee, where Beyonce’s sister Solange Knowles performed for the crowd.

Missoni admitted she didn’t get the monochrome memo after arriving in a colourful dress, pink wedges and floral crown.

Meanwhile, Kate Peck won the award for bringing the most security guards.

The Myer ambassador had eight bodyguards in tow as she swanned around Flemington wearing the most expensive hat in the world.

Created by milliner Natalie Bikicki and jeweller John Calleija, it featured 1264 white diamonds worth a cool $3 million.