|
AUSTRALIA will need to adjust their batting strategy if they are again faced with a slow pitch in their World Cup Super Sixes cricket match against New Zealand at St George’s Park tomorrow, says opening batsman Matthew Hayden.
The left hander had his mind back on cricketing matters at yesterday’s press conference after spending some time surfing at Jeffreys Bay.
Asked if the surfing excursion was becoming an annual habit, Hayden replied: “Yeah, why wouldn’t it be at one of the best righthand breaks in the world. The surf is generally so consistent. Last year was pretty average, but it’s normally so consistent that you’re always getting waves so it was a top day.”
Hayden didn’t have a net session yesterday, but said they’d played a lot of cricket. “It’s been our strategy for some years now just to start backing off a bit.
“We’ve trained hard and it’s been quite a long campaign and I’m ready just to bat in the middle now.”
Looking ahead to tomorrow’s clash at St George’s Park, which starts at 10am, Hayden acknowledged that New Zealand would be a tough challenge.
“They’ve played good tournament cricket,” he said. “We saw that we had our hands full in that VB Series (in 2001/02 in Australia when South Africa and New Zealand contested the final). We were a bit hurt by that, but it’s all about intensity and purpose for us and it starts on Tuesday.
“New Zealand are a side who tend to take the pace off the ball which is a threat to us, and we’re playing in conditions which are slow and low as we saw against England, so we are going to have to be on top of our game.”
The world champions were given a scare by England in their first round clash, slipping to 46 for four and later 135 for eight before Michael Bevan and an inspired Andy Bichel won the day.
Hayden said the team would need to heed those lessons.
“We went out with a very positive strategy against England to chase down that total as quickly as we could, not from an arrogant point of view, but more from a body language point of view,” the opener said.
“On slow wickets where you’re chasing small totals you tend to get into a position where you can get bogged down and not play your natural game. But I guess we were a little bit impatient . . . ”
Tomorrow, the Aussies play their second match in Port Elizabeth and if they top the Super Sixes log, which seems likely, they’ll be back here next Tuesday for the first semi-final.
|
|
