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 Sydney, Oct 22: The Indian tri-series cricket tournament will provide an understrength Australia with more of a challenge than this year's World Cup, captain Ricky Ponting said today. The Australians flew out of Sydney today for the tournament involving India and New Zealand with a second-string attack.
Missing from the squad were the pace trio of Glenn McGrath, Jason Gillespie and Brett Lee plus suspended spinner Shane Warne. Ponting also said Australia would be less prepared for the conditions than the other two teams, which played a two-Test series which finished earlier this week.
"Both the sides we are playing against are very good one-day sides and they've been there and playing in those conditions for the last few weeks," Ponting said. "We've got our backs to the wall a little bit with our injuries and preparations, but we won't be using those as excuses, we'll get over there and prepare the best that we can."
He said the tournament could be one of Australia's biggest challenges. "The World Cup I thought was a big challenge for us as well. Going to the World Cup as favourites and defending champions, we were under a fair bit of pressure there as well," Ponting said. (Agencies)
Published: Wednesday, October 22, 2003
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