Colombo: Ricky Ponting is not worried because their 34-match winning streak came to a halt against Pakistan, on Saturday. Rather, it’s his team’s batting with which the Australia captain is concerned.
Speaking at a media conference after Saturday’s game, Ponting also said that they needed to rectify themselves quickly in order to survive the quarter finals.
The following are excepts
On their 34-match World Cup winning streak coming to an end…
We have not been talking of that winning streak or anything… But the fact that we have played a good Pakistan side, and come short, will get all the guys thinking the way they need to play. We have to learn quickly. We found ourselves in some tough situation today (Saturday) and we weren’t good enough to get out of it. We have to learn from that and learn quickly. If we play the same way against, say India (in the quarters), in Ahmeadabad, you can guarantee that the same situation is going to pop up again.
On what went wrong
I thought we fought our way back into the game with the ball and on the field. We gave ourselves a good chance to win when we had them six down… But we were not just not good enough today (Saturday). We needed to make 240...
The Aussie bowling performance
I thought our fast bowlers were the most dangerous on this wicket… I thought the wicket was up and down for the quicks... Brett Lee and Mitchell Johnson were dangerous… I thought Shaun Tait would make a breakthrough for us in those middle overs... Shaun Watson bowled his quota of ten overs. We couldn’t bowl everyone as the game couldn’t go down to 50 overs... I used the guys whom I thought were the most dangerous bowlers on this wicket.
The batsmen
The way we batted was no where near standard required to win a World Cup game against a Pakistan side. We have some thinking to do about the way we batted. An effort of that kind is not god enough to win World Cup matches.
His dismissal
I knew I had nicked it… As always, I waited till the umpire gave me out… That’s how I have always played the game.
