Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Punter expects toned-down McCullum

Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Cricket Updates


Ricky Ponting does not expect Brendon McCullum to bat as he did on Sunday when the teams meet in the Chappell-Hadlee series on Wednesday.

McCullum played a cavalier innings, cracking 116 from 56 balls, and New Zealand eventually won a one-over eliminator after Australia matched their hosts' total of 214.

Ponting, who does not play Twenty20 for Australia but remains a key man in the 50-over team, cannot see McCullum taking the same attitude into the longer version of the one-day game.

"I'd be surprised if he plays that way and those sort of shots in a 50-over game. The way he played the other day was pretty much down to having to do that because of the format," Ponting said.

"He'll probably feel a bit more responsibility going into a 50-over game as well. Being one of their most experienced players and probably their batter in the best form at the moment he'll probably put it on himself to try to bat for longer periods.

"But as a result of some of the things he did do the other night there has been some conversation around the group about the way we should bowl if he plays some of those shots again so I think we've all learned from watching his innings."

New Zealand halted Australia's unbeaten summer run with their thrilling victory in Christchurch.

However Ponting's men last tasted 50-over one-day international defeat at the end of October last year against India. Since then they have won three on the trot against the Indians to wrap up that series 4-2 and swept aside Pakistan (5-0) and the West Indies (4-0) on home soil.

"Our boys have been on the road for a while and playing a lot of cricket and our form of late has been terrific," Ponting explained.

"So as I've said to our guys right from the start of the summer, it's about trying to find ways to make yourselves better players day in and day out and in the majority of the summer we were able to do that.

"And our team performances probably got better and better as a result.

"We know we have got to give the Kiwis a lot of attention. They're a very good one-day outfit and they've got some matchwinners in their side as we saw the other night, so we have to make sure we start the series well."

Ponting laughed off the impact of the Twenty20 defeat.

"It didn't affect me because I wasn't in the side!" he said.

"There's a few guys coming into this team that didn't play the other night so what generally happens then is that those guys generally bring in a different sort of attitude and probably a more energetic attitude considering they've had a week off."

Ahead of the one-day international in Napier, New Zealand captain Daniel Vettori stressed he would urge McCullum to play in the same uninhibited manner which brought him success in Sunday's match.

"We want Brendon to keep playing the same way," Vettori said. "We'd love that to happen all the time but the nature of cricket means it doesn't so we need other guys to step up."

Vettori predicted a high-scoring match, on a pitch where spin bowlers may struggle to be economical, and picked out Ponting and David Hussey as major threats from the Australia batting line-up.

"They're bringing in some quality players and they're bringing in the team that's dominated their one-day series back home," Vettori said.

"We've got to get up to speed with a lot of them. But they're obviously bringing in one of the best batsmen of all time in Ricky Ponting, so he's a guy we're going to have to really prepare for.

"Him and Hussey have amazing records against us so for us to stop them were going to have to do well against those two in particular."

Vettori relishes the clashes with Australia and knows the New Zealand public feel the same. He also suggests the New Zealand team's performance against their neighbours is how the rest of the world judge them.

He said: "It means a lot to us and it's basically our credibility within world cricket. If we can step up against these guys, play well and win, then people respect us as a team. If we roll over then our summer has been a disappointment."


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