Ponting happy with Tait's wayward brilliance

Julian Guyer

Australia captain Ricky Ponting is prepared to tolerate Shaun Tait's waywardness if the fast bowler keeps taking wickets at the World Cup.

Tait, who now restricts himself to one-day matches after an injury-plagued career, has a 'slingshot' action which can be hard for batsmen to face. But he can also be way off target too. Tait's career was arguably encapsulated in champions Australia's group win over New Zealand in Nagpur where his first over-and-a-half cost 19 runs, including wides and no-balls.

However, the 28-year-old old South Australia speedster then dismissed Kiwi dangerman Brendon McCullum and finished the match with figures of three wickets for 35 runs in seven overs.

Unplayable

"You probably do treat him a little bit differently than others because he's an out and out wicket-taking bowler, that can deliver the unplayable ball quite a few times through his 10-over spell," said Ponting.

"You give him a licence to run in, bowl fast and take wickets. The best illustration of Shaun as a bowler was the New Zealand game.

"I think he was halfway through his second over and he had none for 19 and in three or four overs he had three for 30 or whatever it was. That's the sort of impact he can have on games."

Australia, bidding for a fourth straight World Cup and fifth in all, are now the only unbeaten side at this tournament and are already through to the quarter-finals ahead of their group match against Canada on Wednesday.

Major test

They round off their Group A campaign against Pakistan in Colombo on Saturday in what is expected to be their first major test after a match against co-hosts Sri Lanka was washed out last weekend.

Ponting though insisted Australia's focus was firmly on the present.

"We haven't looked that far ahead. We want to win every game that we play and we want to continue to improve on each performance as we go through this tournament," he said.

"One of our great keys to success in previous World Cups is we've been able to build our way up through tournaments and when the semi-finals and final have come around is generally when we've been playing our best cricket."

AFP