COLOMBO, (Reuters) – Ricky Ponting’s men would have woken up on Sunday nursing their bruised egos, scratching their heads and wondering what went wrong — barring the skipper himself none of them knew what it felt like to lose a World Cup match.
That reality would have hit them, and hit them hard, after they were outwitted, outclassed and outplayed by Pakistan on Saturday in a Group A showdown.
After such a huge blow, Ponting faces perhaps the most testing days of his captaincy as he tries to lift the morale of his team going into next week’s knockout phase.
“We are good enough to get out of this. We have to learn from this result,” Ponting said moments after the loss.
All rounder Steve Smith was a nine-year-old school boy the last time the Australians lost a match in the showpiece event — and that was 12 years ago after which the world champions stitched together a 34-match unbeaten streak.
They will live to fight another day since Saturday’s defeat was in a round-robin match which did not have much riding on it and they had already qualified for the quarter-finals.
Ponting wanted to emphasise this point rather than dwell on his first Cup defeat as captain.
“To be honest, the loss hurts us a lot but we hadn’t lost a game in the last 34 matches. So we haven’t done badly,” said the 36-year-old, who is the only survivor from the team that went down to Pakistan in the 1999 Cup defeat.
‘LEARN QUICKLY’
They returned from that setback to win the trophy and the two in 2003 and 2007 that followed. “We found ourselves in some tough situations. We have to learn quickly. If you look at our team, it’s reasonably well balanced.”
While Ponting chose to underline how his team are capable of bouncing back, Australians back home will be scrutinising how their aura of invincibility was finally shattered.
There are so many questions which need rapid answers.
Was it the tactics? Was it fatigue? Overconfidence, or a combination of those things?
Why pick Smith instead of the more experienced David Hussey if the 21-year-old’s services as a leg-spinner would not be required?
Are the team running out of steam after a hectic few months in which they lost the Ashes, hammered England 6-1 in a ODI series back home followed immediately by the World Cup?
Were Ponting’s men simply too complacent since they had not lost a Cup match for so long?
Whatever the cause, the captain knows he has to address the problems — and quickly — as one more slip-up and they will be out of the competition. The last time they failed to reach a World Cup final was 1992.
Whereas once people thought there were more chances of Australia enjoying a white Christmas than Ponting’s men being stretched by a second-tier nation — that myth was busted over the past week.
As if allowing Kenya to pile up 264-6 against them was not bad enough, Australia’s formidable pace trio of Shaun Tait, Brett Lee and Mitchell Johnson were knocked for a six — literally — by a 19-year-old batsman who represents a team made up of an engineer, taxi driver and insurance agent.
Canada’s Hiral Patel is unlikely to become the next Sachin Tendulkar but for 58 breathtaking minutes last Wednesday he taught more experienced batsmen a thing or two about how raw pace should be dealt with during his whirlwind 45-ball 54.
Although Australia beat Kenya and Canada, the signs of their dwindling powers were often exposed by those World Cup also-runners and a fired-up Pakistan were only too willing to expose those frailties further.
Top of the list would have been Ponting’s own failures with the bat, He has now gone 17 ODI innings without hitting a century and has not even hit a 50 since June last year.
His desperation to prove himself was evident on Saturday when he attempted to cut a ball which was not wide enough for the shot and edged it right into the hands of wicketkeeper Kamran Akmal. “It’s just the way things are happening for me at the moment. I am trying my best as hard as ever,” said Ponting.
“I will keep doing the right thing, hopefully that big score will come. Big games are coming up and I hope for a better performance.”
The absence of a lethal spinner in their ranks has also been hurting Australia on the sub-continent’s placid pitches.
The World Cup’s list of leading wicket-takers is headed by spinners Shahid Afridi (17) of Pakistan and South Africa’s Robin Peterson (14). With a haul of just five scalps, Australia’s Jason Krejza does not even make it into the event’s top 40 list.
When quizzed about their lack of success with Krejza and whether his team have any plan B when it comes to spinners, Ponting had more success batting away the awkward question than he has had hitting boundaries in this tournament.
“We will have to think of it over the next couple of days. We don’t know who we are going to play … we need to see who we are going to play and what the wicket is going to be before making our minds make up,” he said, opting to ignore the query.
Ignorance might be bliss for Ponting in a tricky news conference but it is not going to win Australia a record fifth World Cup.
