Ponting – No panic

Ricky Ponting insists there is still a “good feeling” in the Australia dressing room despite his side’s losing run extending to a seventh game on Friday.

Sri Lanka heaped yet further misery on Ponting and his troops in the second one-day international at Sydney, the 29-run win sealing a historic series triumph for the tourists.

Australia, whose last win came against Pakistan in a Test match back in July, have lost their last seven matches with major concerns lingering over their form ahead of the forthcoming Ashes series.

Yet Ponting, who will sit out of the third and final ODI in Brisbane on Sunday in favour of playing for Tasmania in the Sheffield Shield, is adamant there is no cause for alarm with the first Test getting underway on November 25.
Hype

He said: “We are just far enough off to be losing games of cricket at the moment.

“We have had seven games in a row now where we have had opportunities to win games and we haven’t got there.

“All departments are a little bit wanting at the moment.”

The Tasmanian refused to use the hype surrounding the Ashes as a reason for their poor form, adding: “You can’t use that as an excuse.

“We have known for a long time about this series and how important it was for us to play well here leading into the Ashes and we haven’t done that over the last two games.

“We have the chance now in Brisbane (in the third and final ODI against Sri Lanka) to get things back on track and a bit of state cricket after that.

Improve

“We have to start winning games, it’s really important to have that attitude and feeling of winning games around the dressing room and we haven’t done that for a while now.”

Ponting, who missed the opening one-day defeat to Sri Lanka to attend his grandmother’s funeral, is confident he and his players will turn the corner in time for the crunch series with England.

“There is a good feeling around the group,” he added.

“We had a good chat after the game in Melbourne and we talked about areas of our game we had to improve on and unfortunately we haven’t done that as well as we would have liked tonight.

“It’s about time we got back to playing the brand of cricket we know we are capable of and if we do that I am sure we will win some games.”