Ricky Ponting relieved at victory over Zimbabwe in Australia’s first World Cup fixture
Australian captain Ricky Ponting is relieved at his team’s opening match victory against African minnows http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Zimbabwe-c3045 in the ICC World Cup 2011 on Monday.
According to the Australian captain, his players played ‘solid and good’ cricket in the opener. The Aussies posted 262 runs for six wickets while batting first and then bowled out the Zimbabweans for just 171 runs.
Ponting not taking anything away from his team pointed out the fact that there was still some work required to be done in playing against the spinners.
While talking to the media he said, “We know we have to improve our performance against spin, which I am sure we will do as we get used to the conditions. We have variation in our pace attack. It was one of the best performances in one-day cricket by Mitchell
(Johnson).”
The highlight of the match included the four wickets by left-arm pacer Mitchell Johnson. The Zimbabwean batsmen just did not have any answer to the bowling of the lanky pacer. Fellow speedster Brett Lee took one wicket while Shaun Tate took two.
The Aussie batsmen are going to be up against some of the world’s best spinners such as http://www.senore.com/Cricket/India-c750 this year in the mega event. If Australia want to have any chance of retaining their silverware, they need
to be prepared to play against the world’s finest spinning attacks.
Australia are heavily depending on their pace battery and it will be up to the pacers like http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Brett-Lee-c48419 to help the reigning One Day International champions in retaining their title.
Before the start of the World Cup, there were concerns that perhaps Australia would be making a big mistake by depending on too many pacers for the Subcontinent wickets which are famously known for favouring the batsmen and spinners.
However, the Aussie pace attack is getting the job done for their national team so far and the way things are going, http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Australia-c746 may not need the services of genuine spinners at all.
Australia have been in top ODI form despite losing the 2010-11 Ashes series against traditional rivals http://www.senore.com/Cricket/England-c56013 by a huge margin. They beat the Poms by 6-1 in the seven-match ODI series played after the Ashes and would want to carry on the same momentum in
cricket’s quadrennial event.
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