VB Series finals, 2005-06

Ponting confident of fightback

Cricinfo staff

February 11, 2006

Ricky Ponting says a lack of communication was to blame for Australia's shambolic running © Getty Images

Ricky Ponting, the Australia captain, was confident that his team would bounce back in the next match at Sydney on February 12 and see the contest extend all the way in the best-of-three VB Series finals.

"We pride ourselves on our running between the wickets and our calls and our judgement of runs, tonight it was sadly missing," he told ABC Sport following Australia's 22-run loss at Adelaide yesterday. "But it's obviously not any skill errors, just a few little communication errors more than anything that has cost us and we must make sure we rectify that by Sunday. You know, we've come up 20 runs short and did everything we possibly could wrong in our batting innings, so we can take some confidence from that."

Tom Moody, Sri Lanka's coach, praised his side but called for a repeat performance. "The guys played their A-game tonight and we have walked away with a good advantage going into Sydney," he said. "We have still got a long way to go because we want to be playing this type of cricket every time we play." Singling out Tillakaratne Dilshan's brilliance in the field - he effected four run-outs and took a sharp chance - Moody said hard work was the basic answer to a Sri Lankan resurgence. "I think it's a combination of pressure, high-class fielding - Dilshan's fielding tonight was outstanding," he added.

Echoing Moody was Marvan Atapattu. "We were clearly the underdogs coming into the series," he said. "People thought it was a two-horse race (between Australia and South Africa) but here we are and the third horse has won the first final."

© Cricinfo

	Email

Watch our daily Cricinfo SportsCenter news round-ups Available on Cricinfo.tv     Add a Cricinfo Widget to your website now! Cricinfo Widgets     Live scores, results, news, features and more - a click away Download the Cricinfo Toolbar

Stories

Dilshan's brilliance sinks Australia

Matches

Australia v Sri Lanka at Adelaide

Players/Umpires

Marvan Atapattu

Tillakaratne Dilshan

Tom Moody

Ricky Ponting

Series/Tournaments

VB Series

Teams

Australia

Sri Lanka