Ponting looking forward to facing ‘unpredictable’ Pak team on Saturday
March 18th, 2011 - 4:28 pm ICT by ANIBangalore, Mar 18 (ANI): Australian cricket captain Ricky Ponting has said he is looking forward to the champions being tested by Pakistan in their final group match of the World Cup.
Australia already through to the quarter-finals, and bidding for a fourth straight title, made it 34 games unbeaten at the World Cup with a seven-wicket thrashing of Canada on Wednesday to go top of Group A, The Dawn reports.
Australia would take up Pakistan in Saturday’s World Cup match.
“It’s always a great challenge playing against Pakistan because, as everybody knows, you’re just never really sure what they’re going to turn up and do on the day. They can be a very, very good side one day and, as we saw against New Zealand, they can be very, very ordinary the next. They have that sort of unpredictability about them,” Ponting said.
“The last game they played in Colombo was against Sri Lanka and they upset them there so they’ll know the conditions pretty well and, by the looks of things, they’ll play the conditions there pretty well,” he added.
Meanwhile, Pakistan Captain Shahid Afridi has said that his team has the “capability and the firepower” of defeating Australia on Saturday.
“I am sure we have the capability and the firepower to beat Australia and break their unbeaten run,” Afridi said.
Talking about the importance of Saturda’s match against Australia, Afridi said: “It is a very important match for us in the tournament and will determine our position in the group, so players know they have to win the match.” (ANI)
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