Aussies look ready for the taking, says Lara

by Robert Smith, MELBOURNE, Australia, Monday (AFP) - West Indian batting maestro Brian Lara senses that a wounded Australia are vulnerable and ripe for another beating in this week's one-dayer Super Series here against the World XI.

Lara said Australia, hurting after losing the Ashes to England last month, looked ready for the taking and urged his Rest of the World team-mates to put the pressure on Ricky Ponting's team.

Lara, sixth all-time leading run-getter in ODIs with 9,354 runs at 41.95, forms a potent batting lineup in the world XI along with Indians Virender Sehwag and Rahul Dravid, Englishmen Andrew Flintoff and Kevin Pietersen and South African Jacques Kallis.

Asked at Monday's official launch of the Super Series here if Australia were looking vulnerable, Lara said:

"Most definitely. It's just after England and I think at present they are wounded after the Ashes. We can even things up by applying the pressure from the Rest of the World, because that's who we represent."

Australian skipper Ricky Ponting quipped that the only scar he had from the Ashes series was on his right cheek after ducking into a short-pitched delivery in the first Lord's Test. But he said his team had moved on from the agony of relinquishing the Ashes.

"I think we've all had some time to sit back and think about the Ashes series," Ponting said at the press conference. "Obviously, it was a disappointing one for us. England played very well, there's no doubt about that, but that's over and done now and forgotten about as far as I am concerned and I am sure as the rest of our players are concerned.

"It's another great challenge that lies ahead of us over the next couple of weeks and that's all we've been focusing on and hopefully we've learned from our mistakes that we made during the Ashes. "If we don't learn from them then we're pretty stupid. But we've done that, we've forgotten about the Ashes, we've moved on and we're looking forward to this challenge."

Australia suffered a double injury blow with the Monday withdrawals of all-rounder Brad Hogg and fast bowler Shaun Tait for this week's one-dayers.

Left-arm spinner Hogg tore cartilage in his left knee and will return home to Perth for surgery scheduled Tuesday, while Tait has an injured right shoulder. Hogg's place was taken by Victorian leg-spinner Cameron White, while NSW paceman Stuart Clark replaced Tait.

Ponting confirmed that Simon Katich will open the batting along with Adam Gilchrist in this week's ODI series after the axeing of regular opening batsman Matthew Hayden.

World skipper Shaun Pollock played down talk that his team of all-stars will struggle to mould into a team capable of downing Australia on their home turf. "A lot of people say that our hardest challenge will be to gel as a team as a unit," South African Pollock said. "We haven't played together before and some of us have played in the same side, but I don't see that as much of a problem.

"As professional cricketers we all take our jobs very seriously, we are used to being in different roles and once those roles are identified I don't think we'll see any problems with guys having to do that."

England's big-hitting Pietersen said he was excited playing in a team of world cricket luminaries. "I'm just very happy to be here... if this had been suggested to me six months ago I would have laughed.

This year has been incredible," Pietersen said.

"It's the enjoyment factor, coming out here to enjoy ourselves and to pick the brains of the absolute geniuses that are around in the dressing room, so I'm just thrilled to be a part of it."

The first of three one-dayers takes place at Docklands Stadium here on Wednesday. A six-day Test match at the Sydney Cricket Ground starts on October 14.