Ponting was hoping that his fast bowlers would take care of the Jayasuriya factor ahead of a mouth-watering Super Eight contest of the World Cup on Monday.
GRENADA: Australian captain Ricky Ponting was hoping that his fast bowlers would take care of the Jayasuriya factor ahead of a mouth-watering Super Eight contest of the World Cup on Monday.
"Jayasuriya has been a class player for quite some time. He loves to get on top of bowling and I hope Shaun Tait can play a factor in stopping him," remarked Ponting on the eve of the match.
Ponting did not fail to evoke memories of the 2003 World Cup when the express pace of Brett Lee broke the arm of the left-handed opener and he hoped Tait could perform similarly.
Jayasuriya has been the leading run-scorer of Sri Lanka in this tournament with 367 runs from seven games at an average of 52.42, including two centuries and one fifty.
Muthiah Muralitharan, another strength for the Sri Lankans, and Chaminda Vaas are the leading bowlers for the islanders.
"Vaas has been a class bowler for a long time. What he and Malinga have done in this tournament is to take early wickets. It makes the team effective in the middle overs. Our plan would be to get through the new ball as well as we can and not to lose early wickets," Ponting said.
"We need to keep wickets in hand for the middle part of the innings and score runs off slow bowlers," he said.
There is enormous build up for the match with even Glenn McGrath conceding that it is the biggest test for the Australians yet.
"It looks the best game so far - at least on paper it does. But then we have had a few such games already in the tournament," he said.
"The game against South Africa was supposed to be one such big game. But in the end it was not as close as people would have expected. Same with the game against the West Indies. Our hardest game so far has been against England.
"Here we are looking for a good, hard, honest contest. Hopefully we would play our best cricket against Sri Lanka tomorrow," he added.
Ponting also did not fail to mention that at this stage of the tournament, New Zealand at this stage just cannot be discounted.
"The best thing of course is to stay in the present and focus on one game at a time. If in between games you start looking forward and backwards then you lose focus.
"If Sri Lanka was to reach finals, we would think about it then," he said.
Ponting ruled out Shane Watson for the game tomorrow as the allrounder is still recovering from his hamstring injury.
He also expected South Africa to be a dangerous contender for the title if they were to make it to the semi-finals.
"They did not get the best of conditions the other day. That is one-day cricket. They have lost a couple of more games than were expected.
"But if they get things right, they can still be a dangerous side, especially if they progress to semi-finals," he said.
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