Ricky Ponting admits Australia need to bat better against slow bowling on Subcontinental tracks
http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Zimbabwe-c3045.
The mega tournament kicked off on 19 February, 2011; and has so far seen stronger teams launch their World Cup campaign against minnows.
Defending champions Australia, have not been tipped as the favourites to win cricket’s premier tournament this time around. They lost both their warm-up matches against http://www.senore.com/Cricket/South-Africa-c757 finding it difficult to bat on low, slow pitches in the Subcontinent.
Though they won their first World Cup fixture against Zimbabwe, their batsmen failed to score in a confident manner, putting up a total of 262 runs on a high-scoring pitch. Ricky Ponting noticed this and said “We need to play better. We need to have our
games and our own game plans sorted out for better spin attacks”.
“As the tournament goes on, we’re going to need to be on top of our games and we’re probably not quite there just yet,” Ponting added.
Australia appeared uncomfortable against Zimbabwe's bowling attack, which included five spinners. Though the Zimbabwean spinners are not that seasoned in their approach, they used the conditions to their level best against Australia and bowled a tight line
to their batsmen.
The Kangaroos were not able to post a high total on the board but they were quite lethal in their bowling department; they dismissed the African minnows for 171 runs. Mitchell Johnson was the pick of the Australian bowlers and picked up 4 wickets during
his spell. Ponting warned that his fast bowlers will trouble all the teams during the mega tournament.
“Brett (http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Lee-c72382) is accurate, (Shaun) Tait bowls with a sling-arm action, moving the ball away with the new ball and then reversing the old. Mitchell Johnson swings the ball both ways,” he said.
Ponting hopes that as Australia play more matches in the tournament they would perform better and would get more accustomed to the Subcontinental conditions.
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