Ruling out complacency as the reason for his team's five-wicket loss at the MCG on Sunday, Ricky Ponting said the Ishant Sharma-led Indian bowling unit deserved credit for bowling Australia out for 159.
“I don't think we were overconfident going into the game, you don't carry over anything from the previous game,” the Aussie skipper said, referring to Friday's 128-run trouncing of Sri Lanka. “We wanted to set a good total. But today we were not good enough. There was some poor batting, 159 on that wicket was just never enough. We played the game we normally do, but unfortunately, our skills let us down.”
Of Ishant, he went on, “He is a little 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. 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. Even Sreesanth is reasonably inexperienced, having played only a handful of games. But they are going well at the moment. They are doing a good job and bowled well tonight.”
Ponting attacked the Indians with his four specialist quicks, delaying the third Power Play as long as possible. “It was all or nothing; I felt if we were to win the game it was not past 45 overs,” explained Ponting. “We decided to go for broke. When Yuvraj got out, with (Rohit) Sharma and Dhoni in, we had to get another breakthrough. We gave it our best shot and attacked as much as we could but Dhoni and Sharma played sensibly towards the end.”
Asked if India had missed a chance to pick up the bonus point, he replied, “The game was a bit close for that. If India had taken any risks at that point, the game could have easily swung in our favour. I don't think the opportunity was really there for the bonus point.”
And what of the track itself? “It was pretty good, much like we expected. We knew it would be fairly slow. There may have been a little bit more bounce, but overall it was a very good one-day wicket. We lost early wickets and put ourselves under pressure. Harbhajan was able to come when we were six down and bowl his first six overs for six or so runs. That's the price we paid for losing early wickets.”
