With Australia's battery of fast bowlers ready to fire, rested Test paceman Josh Hazlewood is relishing the challenge of pushing for a spot this summer.
Hazlewood and Mitchell Johnson were given a breather from the upcoming two-Test tour of Bangladesh, where Peter Siddle, Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc and uncapped Andrew Fekete are vying for pace spots.
Hazlewood, Cummins and James Pattinson, who returned to the Australian one-day team for the recent series against England, have all missed big slabs of cricket in previous years through injuries but are now fit.
"It's very exciting, it also puts the pressure on you to make that starting XI with only usually three spots available," 24-year-old Hazlewood said.
"But four, five, even six quicks running around at one time is good for Australian cricket and keeps the current quicks on their toes."
Hazlewood, who has played just nine Tests, was philosophical about being rested from the Bangladesh tour.
"You never Really want to be rested from an Australian side, you don't want to be on the sidelines while a Test match is going on," Hazlewood said.
"But we obviously understand that there's so much more cricket these days than maybe 10 or 15 years ago, so you've got to manage your fast bowlers as best you can."
Hazlewood took 16 wickets in the Ashes series but admitted he lacked consistency.
"I think in those third and fourth Tests, I probably tried to do a bit too much with the ball," he said.
Hazlewood and recently retired Australian Test all-rounder Shane Watson have been named in the NSW Matador Cup squad which contains nine current or former internationals.
The squad also includes former Test batsman Ed Cowan who has returned from Tasmania and is playing his first season for NSW since 2008/09.
Another Australian representative, allrounder Moises Henriques, the only survivor of the last NSW team to win the national one-day competition back in 2005-06, will captain the Blues, who finished runners-up in the one-day format for the past two seasons.
Batsman Ryan Gibson is the only uncapped NSW player in the squad.
NSW Blues: Moises Henriques (c), Sean Abbott, Doug Bollinger, Ryan Carters, Ed Cowan, Ryan Gibson, Chris Green, Josh Hazlewood, Josh Lalor, Nic Maddinson, Kurtis Patterson, Ben Rohrer, Gurinder Sandhu, Shane Watson.
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