After wrapping up the entire match in just 31.5 overs, Australia’s captain, Ricky Ponting, was in a feisty mood at the post-match press conference
13-Sep-2004After wrapping up the entire match in just 31.5 overs, Australia’s captain, Ricky Ponting, was in a feisty mood at the post-match press conference. Paul Coupar heard what both captains had to say:
Ricky Ponting: not impressed© Getty Images
Do you get anything out of this match?
Not as far as we’re concerned. We don’t get a whole lot out of that game. Hopefully the USA boys did get something out of it otherwise it’s a waste of time. I’ve been pretty strong in saying this before – I’m not convinced a Champions Trophy or a World Cup is the place for these sides to play. We’d like to see the game develop over there in the USA. Obviously it’s a huge market for cricket. But we want to be tested as players all the time and I don’t think we were tested too much day.But don’t the small sides need these games to learn from?
What they have to do first is to be a dominant team for a longer period of time in the group lower than this level. What we’ve seen in the last couple of World Cups and Champions Trophies is that different teams every time qualified. It’s whoever plays well in that one little qualifying tournament who comes up. If a team that dominates over a longer period of time comes up [into the World Cup or Champions Trophy] then you’ll know you’ve got a stronger side.What was your strategy today?
The whole idea of the game for us was to win the toss and send them in. Then bowl them out cheaply, go in and get the runs quickly to get our run-rate up above New Zealand’s – in case weather intervenes in our game with them later this week. We’ve achieved that, I think, so we’ve got what we could out of the game.USA captain, Richard Staple
What’s it like in your dressing room?
I just told them we have to keep our heads up high because we were playing against the best team in the world. It is the best attack in the world so we weren’t looking to go out and blast these guys about. And they didn’t give us anything to blast anyway.We learned from the way these guys play and that was our main objective. We didn’t realistically expect to beat these teams.When did you start to fear the worst?
Obviously the batting. We didn’t really get a start at all.And when are you back to the day job?
Next week.