Melbourne, September 16: Ricky Ponting’s decision to rest after the Ashes series was vindicated with his match-winning century at Trent Bridge on Wednesday night.
In just his second innings after a short break following Australia’s defeat in the Ashes, Ponting made 126 off 109 balls as Australia hurtled towards a white-washing of a beleaguered England.
Ponting’s century was his 27th in the 50-over game and fourth against the English.
“I think anyone that we’ve rested over the last few years have generally come back and played really well,” he said.
“Gilly used to do it all the time and I think I’ve done it a few times as well.”
“I’ve worked hard on my batting since I’ve been back to get enough volume work to be able to go out there and play like I did today.”
Australia’s effort to run down such a big total was also pleasing, Ponting said, given the transitional state of the one-day side.
“You need to do a lot of things well in your batting to get those runs and I thought we did that tonight,” he said.
“For the Fergusons and the Whites to see the way we went about it and learn some things about the way we went about it should hold those guys in good stead.”
England captain Andrew Strauss was left to explain another failure by his side, though he was pleased by an improved performance by his batsmen. However, they still have much work to do as evidenced by just one half-century – by Eoin Morgan – from its top six batsmen.
“I thought our batsmen went out with a much more bold approach and that paid dividends today,” he said.
“I thought that was closer to our potential as a batting unit.”
England’s fielding, however, was inexcusably poor.
Misfields off two consecutive balls in the 45th over yielded boundaries at a time when the equation for Australia was a tight run-a-ball.
“We do a lot of work on the fielding and we should be better than that, so that is frustrating,” Strauss said.
“It was a far better performance today, so that was encouraging, but in tight games you don’t want to let yourself down in the more elementary areas of the game.”
——Agencies