Australia paceman Mitchell Starc's foot injury is not as bad as first thought, but the left-armer will still be sidelined until February.

Starc has stress fractures in his foot suffered during the day-night third Test against New Zealand in Adelaide.

There were fears the in-form 25-year-old would be sidelined for the long-term, including missing the Test series against West Indies, limited-overs matches with India and beyond.

Australia bowling coach Craig McDermott played down fears over Starc, who he said could be back for return meetings with the Kiwis in February next year.

"He [Starc] has obviously got a crack in his foot," McDermott told the ABC on Sunday.

"The good news for us is it's not going to be as long as we thought.

"He's in a boot for three weeks and we'll start working from there.

"So hopefully we can get him up for the [return] New Zealand series and the World T20 [in March-April] where he's ranked number one in the world.

"He'll be very important for us in both series so we'll look forward to getting him back."

Australia's first one-day international against New Zealand is on February 3 before the Test series starts nine days later.

McDermott said there were several potential replacements for Starc come the West Indies series, including James Pattinson – 12th man in Adelaide – and Nathan Coulter-Nile.