Barely two days before they square up for a high-profile ODI series, a war of words has broken out between India and Australia.
BANGALORE: Barely two days before they square up for a high-profile ODI series, a war of words has broken out between India and Australia with both teams on Wednesday proclaiming themselves as the rightful world champions.
Australian skipper Ricky Ponting sparked off the debate by saying that his men were the world champions having conquered both the Test and ODI titles.
"India is the World Twenty20 champions. We are the one-day and Test champions and as I see it we have a 50-over series coming up. So that says it all," Ponting asserted.
The Indian camp was quick to react with flamboyant pacer S Sreesanth brushing aside Ponting's remarks with disdain.
"He can say whatever he wants to but the fact is that we are world champions. They can never change that. Trust me it is not going to be easy for them here," he said.
Ponting said though Mahendra Singh Dhoni's men deserved all the accolades for their triumph, it has also put them under tremendous pressure in the series.
"...if there is anything, pressure will probably come back on India," he said, adding, there would be lot of expectations from the Indian team after the Twenty20 triumph.
"There is no doubt that some of the players will be under pressure," he said.
The Aussie skipper said India's Twenty20 win was now a thing of past.
"They (India) played great cricket. They deserved to come back as champions. But that's finished now. We got to look forward to the series," he said.
Reacting to it, Sreesanth said, "They say it is past but it is something they can never change
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