Around 20,000 fans were expected at Sky Stadium for Wednesday night's trans-Tasman clash, when New Zealand could seal the series with a win.

Another 30,000 would have been at Eden Park for a monster occasion on Friday, and the sold out signs were already up at Tauranga's Bay Oval for game five on Sunday.

Instead, New Zealand's latest COVID-19 outbreak prompted the government to raise alert levels, banning crowds at sporting occasions.

There remains a hope that Sunday's final game could see crowds return in Wellington, pending a government review of the outbreak.

But failing that, Stead has called for his players to find motivation within themselves to seal the series, rather than rely on Kiwi fans.

"We love playing in front of crowds ... but in this COVID era and what's going on we need to be able to adapt," Stead said on Tuesday.

"That's why we've got to make sure our is attitude right to just playing what's in front of us.

"It really comes down to individuals' attitude and how they respond to it.

"It's something that we try and pride ourselves on and as a team and I hope that tomorrow you will see a really good performance out of us still."

The Black Caps chose to isolate four players on Monday who spent the weekend in Auckland until they'd returned a negative test result, which came through before training on Tuesday.

Stead called that "a little bit of a spanner in the works", but it wouldn't prevent all members of his 13-strong squad from being available.

The Cantabrian said he expected Australia to make changes for Wednesday's match.

New Zealand beat Australia by 53 runs in Christchurch and four runs in Dunedin last week, putting the Black Caps 2-0 up in the best of five series.

Australian Associated Press