India will be hard to beat: Ponting

SYDNEY: While Sri Lanka and Pakistan could argue about which the nation enjoyed the way most gilted the World Cup semifinals, with wide margins of victory did not deter Australia captain Ricky Ponting to regard India as the most likely winner of the tournament.
Arriving home from the country to Cup success of his long career - or winning the tournament or for the finals in each other - Ponting as team MS Dhoni was batting power to overcome the last resistance. A stubborn Ponting summoned all his reserves of concentration in the fashion of a century in his team's quarter-final against India at Motera, only to see a total just rolled in without too much difficulty by the blade culture Yuvraj Singh.
"India will be hard to beat," he told reporters in Sydney. "They are a very powerful team, there's no doubt about it, their bowling is probably not quite reached its straps as much as they want yet, but their staff is very good.
"No surprise in Sri Lanka today, everyone probably chose that, although the margin is quite amazing and I think they'll be right in the now. I think that Sri Lanka beat New Zealand and I think India will beat Pakistan and if it ends up being an India Sri Lanka final that will be a great game of cricket. "
Back home in Australia from the sub-continent known to many difficult questions about the composition of the Cup team and the conduct of the campaign, but Ponting mounted a fierce defense of both worlds. Team, he argued the injuries had forced the national selectors in a corner facing pace, something that had worked on simililary slow pitches in the Caribbean four years.
"As we know before we go down with Nathan Hauritz and Xavier Doherty down and we have no other options we could turn to take with us," said Ponting. "Shaun Tait has been one of our strengths in the last World Cup in conditions quite similar to what we faced in this World Cup and Brett [Lee] was the resumption of our bowlers by the [party overs Limited summer].
"Mitch [Johnson] has that X factor it true that you need in the tournament itself as a World Cup. We had what we had in terms of which we could take. If you look at other teams that are left in the tournament now, they are probably slightly different from what we did. Many of them are only playing their two quicks and have more options in rotation, but unfortunately for us we don 'have never had that luxury when we left. "
As for his involvement with a television and young allrounder Motera Steve Smith in Bangalore, Ponting was equally perplexed and indignant. "One of the events within the supposed sanctity of the locker room that was something totally accidental happened there," he said. "Like I said, I regret the damage caused at the time but has absolutely not that mean anyone.
"I think the latter is something that has been completely blown out of proportion: I am having a spat on the ground with one of my teammates could not be further from the truth, I mean I do not even not looked into. his direction, so I'm not sure if that actually came from or the extent of many that actually turned back here in Australia, but I thought I had all day to wake up and answer various questions to be frustrated to be there and what the team has been done or what I did, but it certainly was not that.
"I was there enjoying the World Cup for what it was and try to get the best performance from the team every day."