Australia captain Ricky Ponting insists his world champions are ready to face down Sri Lanka's veteran bowlers Muttiah Muralitharan and Chaminda Vaas in tomorrow's World Cup final.
Australia have already beaten Sri Lanka in the tournament when they won their Super Eights clash by seven wickets in Grenada 10 days ago.
But the Asian side courted controversy by resting Muralitharan and Vaas, two of the survivors from the team which beat Australia in the 1996 final.
PHOTO: AFP
"Sri Lanka have a chance to make a statement against us," Ponting said after Australia eased into a fourth successive final with a seven-wicket win over South Africa. "There's no doubt Sri Lanka are a good team, but we are very confident after what we've done in the last seven weeks. Winning games with big margins gives us a lot of confidence."
"I think we executed our game plan very well the last time we played them. They had their full batting line-up and we bowled them out," Ponting added. "We know Murali will do what he does. Lasith Malinga is bowling well and Vaas is a good bowler with the new ball."
Australia have won all of their 10 matches so far in the Caribbean and are unbeaten in their last 28 Cup matches, a run stretching back to the 1999 tournament in England.
Tomorrow's showdown in Barbados will be a repeat of the 1996 final when the islanders beat Mark Taylor's Australians by seven wickets in Lahore.
Ponting's confidence is further boosted by the manner of Australia's win over South Africa.
Proteas skipper Graeme Smith won the toss and chose to bat, but inside 10 overs his team were 27-5 before they were finally bowled out for just 149.
The Australia skipper hailed it as the best performance so far, but believes they can top it in the final.
"We are not saying we are unbeatable. We certainly can be beaten if we don't do things well," Ponting said.
"South Africa are a very good team, and we think we have got some improvements to come. But when the bigger games come, the Australian team stands up. We did that and I hope we will do it in the final," he added.
Australia reduced Wednesday's semi-final to a no-contest when they bowled out the opposition with more than 18 overs to spare. The total of 149 was South Africa's lowest in World Cup history.
But Ponting refuses to believe that South Africa choked.
"One-day cricket can be that way sometimes. I've never used the word in my life and I won't. They were outplayed by a better team, as simple as that and it was a big occasion," he said. "It's a World Cup semi-final. They came out really aggressive and very positive and tried to force themselves on the game. Sometimes in one-dayers it comes off and other times it doesn't."
Bayer 04 Leverkusen go into today’s match at TSG 1899 Hoffenheim stung from their first league defeat in 16 months. Leverkusen were beaten 3-2 at home by RB Leipzig before the international break, the first loss since May last year for the reigning league and cup champions. While any defeat, particularly against a likely title rival, would have disappointed coach Xabi Alonso, the way in which it happened would be most concerning. Just as they did in the Supercup against VfB Stuttgart and in the league opener to Borussia Moenchengladbach, Leverkusen scored first, but were pegged back. However, while Leverkusen rallied late to
If all goes well when the biggest marathon field ever gathered in Australia races 42km through the streets of Sydney on Sunday, World Marathon Majors (WMM) will soon add a seventh race to the elite series. The Sydney Marathon is to become the first race since Tokyo in 2013 to join long-established majors in New York, London, Boston, Berlin and Chicago if it passes the WMM assessment criteria for the second straight year. “We’re really excited for Sunday to arrive,” race director Wayne Larden told a news conference in Sydney yesterday. “We’re prepared, we’re ready. All of our plans look good on
The lights dimmed and the crowd hushed as Karoline Kristensen entered for her performance. However, this was no ordinary Dutch theater: The temperature was 80°C and the audience naked apart from a towel. Dressed in a swimsuit and to the tune of emotional music, the 21-year-old Kristensen started her routine, performed inside a large sauna, with a bed of hot rocks in the middle. For a week this month, a group of wellness practitioners, called “sauna masters,” are gathering at a picturesque health resort in the Netherlands to compete in this year’s Aufguss world sauna championships. The practice takes its name from a
When details from a scientific experiment that could have helped clear Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva landed at the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the leader of the organization’s reaction was unequivocal: “We have to stop that urgently,” he wrote. No mention of the test ever became public and Valieva’s defense at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) went on without it. What effect the information could have had on Valieva’s case is unclear, but without it, the skater, then 15 years old, was eventually disqualified from the 2022 Winter Olympics after testing positive for a banned heart medication that would later