Pointing playing the mind game...

Today I read the column of Ricky Ponting - Australian Cricket Captain in Times of India. It was titled Sree Santh Got away with ordinary stuff (in the semi finals). I guess he is back to his mind games before their team's 7 match one days series in India. He knows Sree Santh is one of the important indian bowlers. He is also temperamental and so he can play with his nerves... but i guess not any more. We have a very shrewed and intelligent new captain in Dhoni who will not allow anything like this to affect Sree Santh's nerves.

If you read his column than u will find that it is full of excuses why Australia could not qualify for finals. Reasons varied from lack of match practice to different venues on which they had to play. Grow up ricky ... accept the fact that YOU DID NOT DESERVE TO BE THEIR IN FINALS. :-)

p.s. Allan Border's column in the same papers said that Sree Santh bowled beautifully.....

PONTING'S COLUMN.

Sree Santh got away with ordinary stuff

Its obviously disappointing not to be part of the team in a semifinal game. Watching from the sidelines, it was the 30-ball explosion that Yuvraj Singh unleashed on the Australians that took the game away.

It ensured that India reached a total that would be difficult to chase. And once Indias bowlers discovered the happy knack of picking wickets at the crucial junctures, we were always playing catch-up cricket.

Yuvraj has always had great ability and in this tournament he has hit boundaries at will. The Indians will be hoping that he will carry this form into the finals as well.

The lack of match practice for most of our batsmen cost us dear on Saturday. The openers Adam Gilchrist and Matthew Hayden have been doing such a great job chasing down totals,that the other batsmen had hardly got any time in the middle before Saturday’s game. I feel the Indian new ball bowlers got away with some ordinary bowling, particularly Sree Santh, whose figures were better than what his performance deserves.Our players did all the hard work in the middle overs only to lose momentum in the last three overs.

With an asking-rate of over ten an over it was difficult for the likes of Michael Clarke and Brad Haddin to up the scoring rate, and the injury to Michael Hussey was a big blow. We have been struggling with fitness right through the tournament, and viewers would notice the number of runners that have been used so far. This form of cricket is extremely intense, and the travel between games can also take its toll. Perhaps the organisers saw the duration of the game and underestimated how taxing it would be. However, with only one day between games and two-hour flights between venues there has hardly been any recovery time.

We did the maximum traveling in the tournament, having played games in Cape Town, Johannesburg and Durban over the last six days, which is why we were not as fit as we would have liked to be for a semifinal encounter. (GAMEPLAN)