Australia will be tough to beat - Ponting

CRICKET: Australia captain Ricky Ponting warned Wednesday that despite some recent poor form the world champions will be “extremely hard to beat” at the upcoming cricket World Cup.

Speaking to reporters at Sydney airport as the team flew out to the Caribbean in search of a third straight World Cup victory, Ponting said he believed his team deserved to remain favourites.

“There’s been a bit of negativity around the team over the last couple of weeks, but I guess that’s to be expected when you’re not playing your absolute best and we certainly haven’t done that,” Ponting said.

The Australians go into the competition after suffering five straight one-day defeats — two against England and three against New Zealand. But Ponting pointed out that the 3-0 whitewash by New Zealand in the recent Chappell-Hadlee trophy was achieved against a weakened team.

“We’ve had up to six or seven of our top 11 players out as well, which probably hasn’t been reported that much over the last couple of weeks,” he said.

“I know there’s a big challenge ahead for the players. It doesn’t get any bigger than a World Cup so if we can’t lift ourselves up and play some good cricket in this, we never will.

“We’ve got some work to do, no doubt, and we’ve got some talking to do about our cricket as well. But we’ll get that done very early and I know that we’re going to be extremely hard to beat.

“I know now that we’re drifting favourites but, once the cricket gets underway, hopefully you’ll see some cricket that’s going to mean that we still are the favourites going in.”

Key players, including Ponting, vice-captain Adam Gilchrist, all-rounder Andrew Symonds and batsman Michael Clarke have returned to the team after missing the New Zealand series.

Although Symonds (shoulder) and record-breaking opener Matthew Hayden (toe) will miss the opening matches of the World Cup, Ponting insisted a full-strength Australia was still the team to beat in the West Indies.

“I can’t see why not. I’m really happy with the squad of players that we’ve got,” he said.

Australia play Scotland in their opening match on March 14 in St Kitts and Nevis.

SYDNEY, Wednesday, AFP