Sport - Cricket

Good preparation for the future: Ponting

Special Correspondent

Kuala Lumpur: Australian captain Ricky Ponting put the DLF Cup triumph in perspective, saying the two-week tournament had been good preparation for bigger things ahead. He also praised the knocks of Damien Martyn and Andrew Symonds on a difficult wicket.

"A good result today," said Ponting. "I still don't think we played out best cricket today. Looking back at the last two weeks or three weeks, it has been very successful with the experimentation. It's been a really good exercise for us. It's nice coming out here and playing at a reasonable level after not having played at all."

On Sunday's final, Ponting said, "I don't think they surrendered. I don't think any side that plays at this level surrenders at all. We happened to bowl very well early on and as I said at the toss the other evening the West Indies have not chased well at all at any time through the series. We knew if we get Gayle and Lara and thankfully Brett got Gayle with the first ball and Lara went shortly after."

Standout bowler

Brett Lee, the standout bowler of the tournament with 12 wickets from three games, said the first-ball wicket of Chris Gayle was special. "The plan was to get that ball to swing back in but I never thought that in my wildest dreams that he would be out the first ball," he said.

West Indies captain Brian Lara chose to look ahead. "We've got to put this behind us and move on. We are defending champions of the ICC Champions Trophy and we have to go into that full of bottle, full of zest, and able to do ourselves proud.

"I do feel that being second-best among two teams rated higher than us was a good effort. Getting to the final first was a good effort as well. Unfortunately, we didn't get things going in the second half, we lost too many wickets early on, and put a lot of pressure on ourselves. So, I wouldn't say surrender, it was just unfortunate we didn't get our act together today. Full stop."

On his dismissal, Lara said, "Of course I was disappointed to get out, but these things happen." Probed about the decision, he added, "When the umpire gives me out, I'm not going to go back."

The gains

What were the gains from the DLF Cup? "I think Dwayne Smith - we just need to get his batting together. You can see he is a power hitter but we need to get him to spend more time in the middle. I think Jerome Taylor improved as the tournament progressed. Bradshaw was his usual excellent self. Gayle had a pretty good tournament.

"We've got five or six in and around the form we'd like them to be. There are other players we have to massage and get together. We are heading in the right direction. I still believe in them."

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