Australian captain Ricky Ponting on Friday warned his teammates to guard against complacency and said it was important to keep the heat on the home team.
HYDERABAD: Having taken a 2-0 lead in the One-day series against India, Australian captain Ricky Ponting on Friday warned his teammates to guard against complacency and said it was important to keep the heat on the home team.
Ponting said the lead taken by his team would be 'pretty handy' and it was important to keep the momentum going in the remaining four matches.
"We started the series the way we wanted to. It is pretty important that we do not sit back and rest on that but we look in to the future of the series," Ponting said after Australia defeated India by 47 runs.
"The lead that we have taken will be pretty handy for us to prove ourselves in the remaining matches. I am happy at the way we have come so far and we have to take it from here," he said.
He said stitching big partnerships was the key to his team's success and lavished praise on the hard-hitting Andrew Symonds for his rollicking knock of 89.
"We came up with good partnerships with Andrew Symonds sticking on to the wicket. Mitchell Johnson has been consistent in wicket-taking abilities in the earlier matches."
"These are the indications to our success so far. We need to do some fine tuning in some areas but generally I am happy about the performances of my players," he said.
Asked whether he felt India could snatch a victory when Sachin Tendulkar and Yuvraj Singh were batting, Ponting said, "Indian batsmen were generally behind the required run rate most of the day. What kept them down was that we took couple of wickets in the game."
"Another ball was given in the 35th over. India did have an advantage. When they changed the ball eight overs earlier, they should have been given the next new ball eight overs later," he said.
On the side's twenty20 World Cup debacle, Ponting said it was a thing of past for them and he was focussed on the ongoing ODI series at the moment.
"Twenty20 is gone for us and the other day we lost in the semifinals. That is all about. We prepare ourselves and always look at the future and plan our strategies for success of future matches," he retorted.
"We need to now stretch ourselves and possibly win as many matches as possible in the present series."
Man of the match Andrew Symonds said it was difficult to bat on track which kept low and said he held back his natural attacking self to build partnerships.
"Pitches here are tough to bat on. It (the ball) stops and comes on to the bat. But we focused on our partnerships. I wanted to hold my shots back until I settled down at the crease," the all-rounder said.
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