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Skipper Ricky Ponting said on Thursday Australia may consider batting second in one-day cricket and opt to chase scores at next month’s World Cup to ease the pressure on their under-fire bowlers.

The defending world champions have for some time preferred to bat first and set the pace after winning the toss in One-day International (ODI) cricket.

But after conceding the four greatest run-chases in limited-overs history during the past 14 months, Ponting admits it may be time for a change.

“We’re going to come up against some small grounds in the World Cup (in the West Indies), so the consideration of batting second in one-day cricket is something there to think about,” Ponting said on Thursday. “That straight away eases a bit of the pressure on the bowlers,” he explained.

But while Ponting admits there are several areas of concern Australia must address before their tournament opener against Scotland on March 14, he denies the team is in crisis.

He does concede much of the aura surrounding Australian cricket has diminished ahead of the World Cup.

“I think it will have an affect on the other teams, they’ll say, ‘hang on England just beat Australia in (the tri-series) finals, New Zealand just beat Australia 3-0, why can’t we beat them’,” Ponting told a business luncheon here.

“I think other teams around the world will be thinking

Australia are beatable now, where only a few weeks ago everybody was wondering how any other team in the world was gong to compete with us,” he added.

Ponting later told reporters: “I don’t think the team’s in any dire straits at the moment”.

“We’ve had a few injuries and lost a few guys, but I’m pretty confident that we’ll be ultra competitive in every game we play,” he expressed.

“If you sat back and look at the results only and you notice that we’ve lost five games in a row, it doesn’t read that well, but I think right through everyone of those games we’ve done lots of things well, but we haven’t done them well enough for long enough,” he explained.

“We’ve got some areas we need to address, but we’ve got a little bit of time now … there’s a good chance for the guys now to freshen up after a long summer for a few days, and we’ll get over there and make sure we’re working as hard as ever on our game,” he added.
Source:The News