Vadodara: 5 ODI, India v/s Australia

[Rahul Khan]

Vadodara: Australia always put their best foot forward when they play a big match and skipper Ricky Ponting said that when Australia come out to play the fifth One-Dayer against India at the IPCL Stadium in Vadodara on Thursday, they will treat it like the final of a tournament. "It will a big game tomorrow. The last game was a great one. The series is alive at 2-1 and we are treating it like a final game. When the bigger games come, the Australian team plays its best cricket. Hopefully we will play our best tomorrow," Ponting said at the pre-match press-conference here on Wednesday.

Ponting congratulated Sachin Tendulkar on reaching the milestone of 400 One-Dayers but also hoped that the master blaster would not score a big one at Vadodara. "The thought of some one playing so many One-Day Internationals is mind boggling. An Australian playing so many matches is overwhelming. But the Indians tend to play many more matches and congratulations to him. Very well done, it is a great achievement. Hopefully he won't score many runs in the game tomorrow," Ponting said. "I have played about 240-250 games and the thought of playing twice that many is a bit daunting. I believe he plans to play the next World Cup and if he does that he would have played far more than 500 games," the Australian skipper added. While conceding that Australian bowling was a bit wayward in the Chandigarh match, Ponting assured that his bowlers would come up with a far better performance. "Hopefully when we a bowl wide now, it won't go for a four. We gave over 30 wides in the last game and that is too many and totally unacceptable. We have tried to have the extras to a minimum. It is something that we spoke in the team meeting and hopefully we won't give many extras tomorrow," he said. Ponting also said that if Australia are to win the Vadodara match then Matthew Hayden and Andrew Symonds must continue their good form. "When those two guys get in and start hitting the ball as they are doing now, then they are very intimidating players. They are both over six-foot and they tend to get down the wicket a bit often and put the bowlers under pressure. I think that's the way One-Day cricket is going. The more Twenty20 cricket will be played, the more you will see players like them. Little boys like me will be struck with playing Test cricket. They are two terrific players and we need then to keep scoring runs if we are going to win. If anything, it is upto me and a few other guys to start scoring those sort of runs. If we make a big score then we are right in the game," he said. Ponting also dismissed the banter between the two teams on the ground as nothing unusual. "I am not that concerned with all the chat that has happened on the field. Some of it has probably gone out of control, a little bit over the top. But I think that in most international sports there is some sort of talk or chat or banter between the players on the field. I don't think cricket is any different from that," he said. He hoped that the pitch would a batting paradise and his batsmen would be able to take full advantage of it. "It looks good. I haven't played here before but if you look at the scores and history of the ground then it has been big-scoring one. The wicket is a good batting surface and looking at the last match here, India batted first made something like 340 for three. If it goes the same way then there are some big runs to be scored there. The ground is not very big and the straight boundaries are just over 60 meters," he added. He also said Australia missed Shane Warne and added the slower bowlers would play an important role in the match. "Yes, it would have been nice to have some one like Shane (Warne) in the team. But he has retired and we have someone Brad Hogg. On this wicket we would like to use Andrew Symonds, Michael Clarke and also Brad Hodge." "We have played the Indian spinners pretty well. Harbhajan Singh and Murali Kartik did a pretty good job in the last game and got India back in the game. But we know what we have to do. If you play in the subcontinent, you must play the spinners well. But in last match we lost wickets at crucial times. If there is a partnership going when the spinners come, then it makes playing them a lot easier," he concluded. http://www.cricketnext.com/news/aussies-to-treat-vadodara-odi-as-a-final/27390-13-single.html