Clarke says World Cup warm-up games more about ‘giving blokes an opportunity’
February 17th, 2011 - 1:20 pm ICT by ANIBangalore, Feb 17(ANI): Australia has been playing anything like the defending World Cup champions since they arrived in India, but vice-captainMichael Clarke claims that the two warm-up games have been a “good hitout”.
Australia was bowled out for 176 against India to lose by 38 runs, and could only manage 217 against South Africa in a seven-wicket loss.
“There’s obviously areas of our game that we need to improve, but I think we’ve had a good hit-out, using these two games to see the conditions that we’re going to come up against,” the Herald Sun quoted Clarke, as saying.
“The results haven’t gone the way we would have liked, but I think we all understand that they are practice games. It’s more about giving blokes an opportunity than the winning.”
“It’s about making sure they’re ready to go come the first game. It’s about training and preparing well over the next six days to be right for the game against Zimbabwe,” he added.
The 29-year-old further said that he wasn’t concerned about Australia’s batting against spin, or off-spinner spinner Jason Krejza’s performance (0-46 and 1-56 in the warm-up games).
“I don’t think either is a worry. Spin bowling is going to play a big part in this tournament . . . how you bowl it and how you face it as well,” Clarke said.
“We’ve got a lot of good players of spin bowling so I’m very confident we can bat better than what we’ve done in these two games,” he added. (ANI)
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Tags: australia, blokes, first game, herald sun, hitout, India, practice games, six days, south africa, spin bowling, two games, warm up games, wicket, world cup champions, world cup warm up games, worry, zimbabwe