Melbourne: Ricky Ponting said on Sunday that the Aussies were not overconfident going into the match but the Indians posed a tougher challenge. The Australian captain was also all praise for Ishant Sharma.

The following are excerpts

On if Australia were overconfident

No, I don’t think we were overconfident going into the game, you don’t carry over anything from the previous game. We won the toss today and wanted to go in and set a good total… That’s what we do every game. But today was not good enough, there was some poor batting, 159 on that wicket was just never enough. But I think we stuck to our task in the field and gave ourselves half a chance of winning the game. At the end of the day we can take a little bit from our game but we have to work on our batting.

On the wicket

The wicket was pretty good, much like we expected. We knew it would be fairly slow. There may have been a little bit more bounce though, but overall it was a very good one-day wicket. We lost early wickets and put ourselves under pressure. Harbhajan bowled when we were six down and bowl his first six overs for six runs. That’s the price we paid for losing early wickets.

On Ishant Sharma

He is a little bit different because he brings the ball back in to the right-handers than a lot of right-arm bowlers you face. He’s tall and hits the deck pretty hard and gets some inconsistent bounce from the wicket — one will fly through and another would skid past low. He looks dangerous with the angles he creates against the left-handers, taking it away from them. He’s been a big improvement for India.

On the Indian pace attack

Even Sreesanth is reasonably inexperienced... But they are going well at the moment. They are doing a good job and bowled well tonight but it remains to be seen how they go about in the series.

On the possibility of a bonus point

The game was a bit close for that. I think if India had taken any risks at that point the game could have easily have swung in our favour. I don’t think the opportunity was there for the bonus point.

On if the Aussies are finding it tough to tackle Ishant

Matty (Matthew Hayden) was on top of him early on… he bowled a couple of no balls and wides. I think Matty and me sensed he was not at his best in his first couple of overs but he got Matty out and then me out.