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Australia captain Ricky Ponting blamed his team’s batting collapse for the defeat against England in the opening match of the CB Series final.

“There are a few areas we could look at but to lose 9-80 (from 170-1) is where the game was lost,” he admitted. “You can’t afford to make those slip-ups in one-day cricket and when pressure is applied it’s amazing how quickly things can change. We’ve got to make sure we’re better under pressure in the next game,” he added.

Ponting said that he expected his team to be too strong for England, despite the recent resurgence from Andrew Flintoff’s team. “I said to the boys beforehand I thought if we played good smart cricket for 80 or 90 overs we should be good enough to win,” the Tasmanian explained.

“The last 70 overs of the day have been terrible so we’ve got a bit of talking to do and not long to do it before Sunday (the second match in the best-of-three final),” he expressed. “I thought the wicket was a lot slower and not as good as it was the other day so I thought if we could 290 that would be a really good score,” he added.

Australia were cruising at 170-1 after 30 overs before Ponting was acrobatically caught by England centurion Paul Collingwood at cover. “My dismissal was probably as bad as anyone’s, it was a pretty ordinary ball and a pretty ordinary shot and we found ourselves under pressure afterwards,” Ponting said.

Australia were profligate in the field, with Glenn McGrath dropping a simple catch and several run-out opportunities missed. “We’ve probably been a bit off the boil in the last few games,” Ponting conceded.

“You miss someone like (Andrew) Symonds in your inner-ring fielding but we’ve got to find other guys to fill that void. We’ve got some good athletes in the side, it’s about time we started hitting the stumps a bit more, we’ve been working hard but at the moment things aren’t coming off but hopefully that will change on Sunday,” he warned.

Source:The News