Calcutta: In addition to sleight-of-hand slower balls and yorkers, Australia's World Cup final hero James Faulkner has revealed bowlers are now also resorting to blatant bluffing to try and quell rampaging batsmen in limited-overs shoot-outs.

As the ever-increasing size and power of bats along with the correspondingly shrinking girth of playing arenas means limited-overs games are skewed heavily in favour of runs scorers, Faulkner concedes the battle is now as much a mind game as a cricket match.

As an all-rounder who understands the expectations and capabilities with bat and ball, Faulkner admits that bowlers and captains are setting fields to try and trick batters into thinking they will employ a specific mode of attack only to do precisely the opposite.

For example, Faulkner explained on Monday, as he prepared to join his fellow ODI squad members in New Zealand for the three-match series against the Black Caps starting on Wednesday, the sight of a square leg fielder on the boundary combined with mid-on and mid-off inside the circle would ordinarily signal a short-pitched delivery is on the way.

Instead, by bowling full and straight, the wishful bowler might hope to trap his adversary with his weight on his back foot which, in turn, would stifle attempts to hit the ball back down the ground. However, should the batter guess right, then yet another boundary is all-but assured.

"It's so hard to defend it doesn't matter how good you are and if you execute bowling plans, teams can still hit you for a minimum of 10-12 runs an over," a media release quoted Faulkner as saying.

"If you're going into the last 10 (overs) only two (wickets) down and you're not getting 100-plus (runs) off that, then I don't think you've done well enough with the bat. So I think you'll find a lot of bowlers at the moment will double bluff - set fields because batters are so good now at reading the play with what bowlers are going to bowl that you have to take the punt every now and again."