World-class all-rounder Chris Cairns will begin his climb back to international cricket by playing matches with the New Zealand Academy side.

Cairns, who is recovering from knee surgery, is on a graduated return to play and the busy Academy programme is seen as ideal build-up while the CLEAR Black Caps are in Pakistan before they return to tour Australia.

The Academy has a four-day game with Otago starting on October 1, another four-day game against Central Districts starting on October 9 and then two three-day games against the Australian Academy and four one-day games with the Australians, ending on October 27.

New Zealand Cricket's High Performance Centre's fitness advisor Warren Frost is overseeing Cairns' recovery and told CricInfo today that Cairns had started bowling again but not in the style that the public would recognise.

"He has taken the first step of many on the way back to being able to play. He's not at full throttle but he is making very good progress," he said.

Taking part in the Academy matches would be useful for allowing Frost to keep monitoring what Cairns was doing each day.

Cairns would be available for much of the programme of games which sees the Academy side finish its year at Lincoln with 26 days out of 38 of cricket.

If all went well in the programme for Cairns he would be in good shape to play a full part in New Zealand's tour of Australia which starts on November 1 with a four-day game against Queensland in Brisbane.

"We want him as well prepared as he can be. He doesn't want to come back underdone and we don't want him back that way either," Frost said.

© CricInfo