Calcutta/ Birmingham: After their meek surrender against England in their opening game, a struggling Australia will have to work on their batting frailties when they take on a confident New Zealand in a Group A match of the Champions Trophy here on Wednesday.

Australia, sans their regular captain Michael Clarke, proved to be no match to the English side as they suffered a humiliating 48-run defeat to start their campaign on a wrong foot. Clarke will miss Wednesday’s game as he is yet to fully recover from his back injury, a Cricket Australia (CA) release said.

“Michael is continuing to have intensive treatment in London, and whilst he is making good progress, he has not improved sufficiently enough to play the game against New Zealand on Wednesday,” said CA physiotherapist Alex Kountouris in a statement.

“We will continue to monitor his progress and determine his availability for next week's final group game against Sri Lanka,” he added.

With no Clarke, it will be a big test for the stand-in captain George Bailey to turn Australia’s fortune around.

Australia bowlers Clint McKay, James Faulkner and Shane Watson did a decent job in restricting England to 269 when they were looking at a 300-plus score at one stage but they still need to add more sting to their attack.

The Aussie batsmen could not pose any threat to the England bowlers, who strangulated them with both pace and spin. Barring skipper Bailey and all-rounder James Faulkner, none of the batsmen were up the mark. What was baffling was most of them got starts but later blew those away.

The two-time champions, hence, will have to re-think about the team composition as another defeat will pave their way for an early exit from the tournament.

Bailey said the Aussies have got the England defeat out of the system.

“There’s no point carrying that into the New Zealand game. We’’ get nowhere then. We addressed some issues and we’ll again dwell on those before the match. I wasn’t unhappy with the way we bowled and fielded. You can improve and do things differently… I think it was the batting that let us down against England. But I must add that it is one just match which will give us the confidence,” he said.

New Zealand, on the other hand, are high on confidence having started their campaign on a winning note, beating Sri Lanka by one wicket. The 2000 winners came into the tournament after a morale-boosting 2-1 series win over England and they would look to carry their good form when they clash with Australia.

Left-arm medium pacer Mitchell McClenaghan, pace spearhead Kyle Mills and their part-time spinner Nathan McCullum did a wonderful job, sharing eight Sri Lakan wickets among them in their opener and skipper Brendon McCullum will expect a similar effort as well.

However, the Kiwis will have to work on their batting as they would not want the job to be left till the last man, the way it happened against the Sri Lankans.