Milestone special for Bracken

Australian paceman Nathan Bracken brought up his 100th career one-day international in the win over New Zealand on Tuesday and it has been a long time coming for the once dumped fast bowler.

Bracken made his debut in 2001 against the West Indies, the same match Steve Waugh brought up his 300 and since then he has taken 157 wickets at a strike rate of 31.4.

But it wasn't all smooth sailing for the 31-year-old. In 2004 he lost his contract and thought that his international career was over.

"I know when I lost my contract in 2004, this was miles away I'd only played 20 games at that stage and pretty much thought that was my career, I thought I'd just play state cricket and maybe fill in here and there," Bracken told cricket.com after Tuesday's match.

"I started to look for work outside, get an education start to think that there's other things to do and I've gotta move on and make sure I can make a living and provide for my family and then fortunately things turned around and I got a contract back and now I've brought up 100 one-day games."

While he admitted that he wasn't big on milestones, the achievement was something that he was proud of and to get it in an important victory was even more special.

"Yeah it was good, I think the big thing was that we won, I guess if you play 100 games and you lose the game it's something you don't really want to sit back and look at in a positive way, but to have a good win here in a big game for us is great and obviously to play 100 games is a great thing, it's something I am very proud of," he said.

"I'm not big on milestones and those sort of things, obviously 100 wickets was something that I wanted to get to, but 100 games was something I guess I just didn't really think about I just saw it keep ticking away and originally it was gonna be in Sydney but unfortunately I was ruled out of the game here against South Africa, so I pushed it to Adelaide, which is a great spot to bring it up, it's one of the most traditional grounds going around and it has a great atmosphere."

"It's an honour to do it and it is something that will mean something to me, probably a bit more when I retire and sit back and look at it."

Bracken's steady rise reached its peak after the 2008 West Indies tour when he became the No.1 ranked one-day bowler, but he said the Champions Trophy victory in 2006 was the highlight of his career.

Playing with some of Australia's greatest ever players are also not lost on Bracken, who enjoys every moment with his team-mates.

"Winning the World Cup was something great and probably the big thing in Champions Trophy," he said.

"Losing the first game there (in India) we were basically under the pump from then on through and we've performed well and pulled together well as a unit and got through tough times over there to win that."

"To play with Steve Waugh in his 300th game was a major thing, but you go through and look at all the players that I've played with and I guess enjoyed seeing them play and perform and just hopefully I've learnt little bits from that to improve my career."