The injury sequence that started before the World Cup for Australia, does not look like it’s going to leave us right through the tournament. Damien Martyn is the latest to have hurt himself, when he sustained a fracture during the last game. He will make way for Michael Bevan, who was rested during our game against Kenya as a precautionary measure. Bevan’s injury was not a serious one, and we would have played him that evening if it had been a crunch game.
Fortunately for us, our injury woes have sat lightly on the players, with the replacements coming and ensuring that the player whom he has replaced has not been missed. Fortunately for us, other than Jason Gillespie, the injuries have turned out to be niggles rather than anything serious. While Damien will be missed at No. 5, Symonds is in great form, and should fit into his slot pretty comfortably. While the entire media is pretty agog with the way we have progressed undefeated into the semifinals, it’s something we have not discussed in our team meetings.
Our situation is not very different from the tennis player who has reached the finals of a tournament without dropping a set. It does not matter how well we have done, because in a knockout stage, everybody starts from zero. Therefore, we have no advantage over Sri Lanka, who have dropped quite a few games on their way to the semis.
Instead, we concentrated on our game plan against Sri Lanka during our team meeting. We have had the better of the Lankans more often than not, and I’m certain that if we execute our plans well, we will continue that trend. The wicket has been in the limelight after the UCB decided to look into why the matches here have been so low-scoring. I went to the ground earlier today, and from the looks of it, the wicket is looking a lot harder than during our games against England and New Zealand.
The color of the pitch is also looking a little different. However, I still feel that the likes of Muttiah Muralitharan would fancy his chances on that wicket. The main issue is how we approach our batting. I will be sitting with the batsmen to discuss the way we should go about our innings. The Australian way, which is to bat aggressively right from the start is what we generally like to do.
We won’t want to change that significantly, but it has been noticed that the new ball is the main danger on this pitch. So perhaps we will hold our horses a bit at the start, and then review things if we have wickets in hand. The wicket at the St. George’s Park has been a bit of a paradox so far. While everybody says it’s slow, the fast bowlers have been doing the damage.
The reason I think this has happened is because the ball has held up and strokeplay has been very tough. Hopefully things will be a bit different. We fancy our chances on any surface, but the occasion is a semifinal, and we think that the viewers should be treated to some good batting on a good wicket.
Arab News Sports 18 March 2003
