Ponting asks his team to be ready for the big moments

By Rahul Bajaj
for Cricketain.com

Published: October 5, 2009

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Centurion: The stage is set for the final of the ICC Champions Trophy 2009 with Australia and New Zealand facing off at Centurion and Australian skipper Ricky Ponting has told his team to get ready for the “big moments” in the final.

Australia, the defending champions after having won the elite ICC event the last time in India, is the only unbeaten team in the tournament having defeated Pakistan, West Indies and England on their way to the final. Their match against India was called off due to rain.

“We’ve done everything that we’ve needed to so far. We’re happy with the way we’ve played our one-day cricket over the last three or four weeks,” Ponting told reporters on Sunday. “As I said after the England game, it’s been about making sure we were ready for the big moments. We were in the semi-final and we’ll make sure we’re ready for the big moments tomorrow as well.”

Ponting said that so far he was satisfied with the team’s performance in the tournament but he expects them to maintain the momentum. “My expectations have always been very high,” he said. “Our first couple of performances in this tournament were very good. We had a little bit of a glitch against Pakistan, the last half of our batting, but we rectified that very quickly against England.”

Australia lost the Ashes earlier this year but their One-day form has been top-notch with the Aussies winning 10 out of the last 11 matches that they have played. “It’s been a long time on the road. We’ve played a lot of very good cricket,” he said.”If we happen to play well on Monday and win the tournament, we’ll look back on the last five months as being a really good period in Australian cricket.”

Ponting said that Australia cannot underestimate the Kiwis and need to keep the intensity high against them. The Kiwis have already exceeded everyone’s expectations by reaching the finals despite them having lost some of their key players in Jesse Ryder, Jacob Oram and Daryl Tuffey.

“They play to their strengths and they do it very well. They’re a very disciplined side and have been for a number of years. They’ll always try and give their 100 percent,” he said. “We have to match them in that department and let our skills take over everything else. We just have to put up a performance and not try too hard for anything spectacular.”

New Zealand skipper Daniel Vettori, on the other hand, said that their bowlers needed to make early breakthroughs and build pressure on the Australian top-order in order to gain the early advantage. “Their top order has been outstanding. They have played very well. If we can do it (keep pressure) that will enable us to have a chanace,” said Vettori.

Vettori said that despite the team facing injuries to key players, it was team-effort which was instrumental to his side’s success. “I can’t let it (injuries) worry me because it’s nothing I can control. The reason we have come so far is that we’ve had team performances,” he said.

“A number of guys have stepped up and allowed us to win. We may not have had too many stars in the tournament, but if you look at every game we’ve had six-seven guys step up and really perform. We have got to put emphasis on our performance. I think the top eight teams here all believed that they can win on the day and we’re no different,” he said.

New Zealand has won the tournament only once when they defeated India in the finals of the then ICC knock out tournament, at Nairobi in 2000.

Squads:

Australia: Ricky Ponting (Captain), David Hussey, Callum Ferguson, Nathan Hauritz, Ben Hilfenhaus, James Hopes, Michael Hussey, Mitchell Johnson, Brett Lee, Tim Paine, Peter Siddle, Adam Voges, Shane Watson, Cameron White, Brad Haddin, Doug Bollinger.

New Zealand: Daniel Vettori (Captain), Shane Bond, Neil Broom, Ian Butler, Brendon Diamanti, Grant Elliott, Martin Guptill, Gareth Hopkins, Brendon McCullum, Kyle Mills, James Franklin, Jeetan Patel, Aaron Raymond, Ross Taylor, Daryl Tuffey.

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