The world team must bat patiently and build more partnerships if they are to keep the one-day Super Series alive, New Zealander Daniel Vettori said in Melbourne on Thursday.
Australia, smarting from the universal criticism of last month’s Ashes failure in England, crushed the cream of world cricket to claim the opening match by 93 runs on Wednesday and can take the series with victory in Friday’s second game.
The motivated Australians hit 255 for eight off their 50 overs and then ran through the world all-stars for 162 in 41,3 overs in a massive anti-climax.
”The biggest thing is that we wanted to bat in partnerships, we thought we may have tried to win the game too early and with such a star-studded batting line-up the guys are used to taking responsibility on themselves to win games,” said Vettori, one of the few world stars to impress.
”I think with so many great batsmen you can take your time a bit more and build partnerships, and that’s what wins most cricket games.”
The left-arm spinner — who captured 4-33 off 10 overs, scored 15 and took a great diving catch for the world team — said the Super Series concept is in jeopardy if the World XI do not win the second match of the three-game series.
”If we lose like that again, we’re going to be hugely disappointed, but we’re confident we can turn it around and turn it around quickly,” Vettori told reporters on Thursday.
”We realise how important it is that we put up a much-improved showing in the next game.
”For the series to be a success, people want to see a 2-1 result, whichever way it goes, and a close-fought Test match [in Sydney next week] for it to have some meaning, and that’s what we’re certainly here for and we’re going to try and turn that around as quickly as possible.”
‘Immense desire’ to win
Vettori countered suggestions that the world team did not appear to have the same intensity as Ricky Ponting’s team in the opening game and that they looked like they were a collection of players drawn from different continents and time zones.
”There was an immense desire in our team to win. We talked a lot about coming here and the only reason we were coming here was to win,” he said.
”There’s been a lot of us who have been on the receiving end of hidings from Australia in the past and this was our chance to put that right.
”We saw that Australia came out with a huge amount of intensity, but by no means were we not wanting to win as much as they were.”
World skipper Shaun Pollock is expecting a big turnaround from his players in the pivotal game after only four batsmen broke double figures — Kumar Sangakkara with 64 off 96 balls and Ashes hero Andrew Flintoff’s 38 being the best performers.
”It’s not that you lose, but in the manner you lose, and for us to be seven or eight down for not much at all was probably the most disappointing part about tonight’s game,” Pollock said.
”You have to give them the opportunity to fight back. But it’s not really about team selection, it’s about mentally that we come out all prepared and do the job well, and that’s the biggest challenge for us.”
Australian captain Ponting, who has received most of the stick from the Ashes loss, summed up the team’s fighting mood after Wednesday’s win.
”We’ve all worn a bit and copped a bit since we’ve come back about the way the team performed in England, which some was fair and some was a little unfair,” he said.
”This has been the first chance we’ve had to show the cricket-loving public of the world just how good a cricket team we are.
”We’ve came up against a very good team and we’ve outplayed them comprehensively. I’m very proud about the way the guys have approached this game, but we’ve set a benchmark that we have to keep up to all the time.” — Sapa-AFP