Resting vice-captain Adam Gilchrist believes the scheduling of the Chappell-Hadlee series is more of a hindrance than help to Australia's World Cup campaign.

The wicket-keeper has also defended John Buchanan, branding critics who have blamed the coach for Australia's form slump as "uninformed".

Gilchrist was given permission to miss the three-match one-day series in New Zealand to remain at home with wife Mel - who is due to give birth to the couple's third child - but believes Australia would have been best served in the lead-up to next month's World Cup if the series was not on at all.

"I'm going to be brutally honest here and say I don't think too many people wanted it on at all," Gilchrist told Fox Sports' Inside Cricket.

"We've had a very hectic summer ... the administrators have got a very difficult job trying to fit all these games in.

"New Zealand were really keen to play this series because it's in their country, they're getting three bumper crowds ... and they haven't had a great deal of international cricket played over there in recent times. So they were keen for it.

"But if you had to be really specific about the Australian cricket team, we didn't need this series at the moment, and it would have been nice to have that little bit of time for everyone to be at home freshening up and getting ready for the World Cup."

Both Gilchrist and captain Ricky Ponting were rested from the series, with Australia also without injured World Cup squad members Brett Lee, Michael Clark and Andrew Symonds.

Under Mike Hussey, the understrength side lost the opening two games and have now conceded the No.1 spot on the ICC one-day rankings after four straight defeats.

Buchanan came under fire from recently retired Test spinner Shane Warne last week for the coach's training methods. Warne said Buchanan had trained the team into the ground.

But Gilchrist said it was wrong for the coach to be lumped with the blame for Australia's form slump.

"The senior player group, the captain, the vice-captain, and all those guys that get a little bit of an input, they discussed it with the coach John Buchanan and the support staff, and pretty much ... agreed to the plan we had in progress and still have in progress," Gilchrist said.

"That entailed a little bit of extra training through the Commonwealth Bank series ... and this is all for the big picture that we're talking about, and that being the World Cup.

"Not disrespecting any other trophy, we're very disappointed that we lost the finals, but that's all it was, we all agreed to it.

"And to say that John Buchanan is solely responsible for our dip in form is I think uninformed, and I don't think unless you're involved in that decision making process you'd really know what's going on."

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