England Twenty20 captain Stuart Broad maintains his side will not be distracted by the Black Caps' recent test and off-field issues.

Speaking for the first time since arriving in New Zealand for their 12-match tour, Broad described New Zealand as a "dangerous" short-form team, and said the three-match Twenty20 series would be a "tough battle".

While England are fresh off a competitive tour of India, New Zealand go into the home series with mixed results in their recent tour of South Africa.

Despite an historic one-day series victory, the Black Caps lost in their Twenty20 series 2-1, and took a test pummelling from the Proteas.

"Their test performances are not something our team need to look at, at all," Broad said at a press conference in Auckland today.

"We've got to start in Twenty20 cricket and one-day cricket.

"We know New Zealand have just beaten South Africa in the one-day format and having played a lot of Twenty20 cricket against [them], we know they are very dangerous.

"For us as a team arriving on these shores, we've got two weeks solid of Twenty20 cricket and we know it's going to be a tough battle.

"We'll prepare ourselves for that, get used to the conditions as much as we can. We know New Zealand have got some fantastic Twenty20 players, and that's all we'll focus on."

England and New Zealand last played each other in cricket's shortest form at Twenty20 World Cup in Sri Lanka in September, with England winning the match by six wickets.

Broad said the English camp were breaking the tour into "small parts" and focusing on each form of the game as such.

"It is a long tour for us, but we have to break it down into small parts for us to be successful," he said.

"If we focus on New Zealand Cricket and what's going to happen ahead, we'll lose sight of what we need to do.

"We're breaking it down into small parts, and that will start with our warm-up games, and obliviously our first big game at Eden Park."

- © Fairfax NZ News