HAMILTON, Feb 20: Australia's bowling coach Troy Cooley hopes the attack has received the ‘wake-up call we needed’ before the team defends the World Cup.

The fast men have fallen from dominators during the first half of the Commonwealth Bank tri-series to a group that could not get a wicket in the opening match of the Chappell-Hadlee Trophy and failed to defend 336 in the second.

Cooley will be part of the squad for the World Cup and he told the Sydney Morning Herald he would be addressing the series of problems before they left for the Caribbean. “We've got some work to do," Cooley said. “May be it's the wake-up call we needed.

"This group of bowlers did a great job of hitting the right lines and building pressure in the first half of the ODI series. You don't just lose that skill. We have to get back to what we do right, and find that right balance."

Australia have suffered from the ankle injury to Brett Lee on the eve of the series and Cooley said Shane Watson’s return and the battle for World Cup places were factors in their performances. “There was so much talk about the six fast bowlers battling for five spots to go to the World Cup," Cooley said. "These issues can play on a player's mind.

"The sudden injury to Lee hasn't helped things, and there's also been the re-entry of Watson and trying to get him some match practice before the World Cup. There are a lot of factors. It’s a combination of things we need to look at."

He agreed with John Buchanan that the bowlers were not "hitting their areas" like they did in the early stages of the CB Series. “There's a danger sometimes that you can go in search of things that aren't there, and I think we have to be mindful of that," Cooley said. "You don't go from being a good side one day to a bad side the next. It's a matter of getting their minds right before the games." –Agencies