The Hindu : Sport / Cricket : Kick out weaker one-day teams: Ponting

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, May 25, 2004

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Sport - Cricket

Kick out weaker one-day teams: Ponting

HARARE, MAY 24. Australia captain Ricky Ponting has called for one-day cricket's weaker teams to be removed from the top flight on the eve of his team's limited-overs series against Zimbabwe. "The standard of some of the one-day sides from lesser countries has to be looked at,'' Ponting told reporters at a news conference on Monday. ``We want to play the best cricket we can all the time against the best teams.''

World champion Australia will take on an inexperienced Zimbabwe team in the first of three one-day Internationals in Harare on Tuesday.

The series was brought forward after the scheduled two-Test series between the sides was called off last week 24 hours before it was due to start. Zimbabwe would have had to field a severely weakened team due to a festering dispute which has left the selectors without 15 experienced white players, including ex-captain Heath Streak.

Ponting believes countries still emerging as cricketing powers should not be exposed to the rigours of competition at top international level. ``I don't think some of the less established countries should play at the World Cup or at the Champions Trophy, basically because I don't think they learn anything against the more powerful countries,'' he said.

``If you look at some of the results from the last World Cup, Canada was bowled out for 36. I can't see how they learn anything out of that. They're better off playing against themselves for an extended period of time, against slightly better opposition. They can improve that way first and when you have a couple of sides that are standouts among that group then they could probably make the step up to the top level of one-day cricket.

Meanwhile, Zimbabwe has called up Mark Vermeulen in place of Prosper Utseya, but will not come into Tuesday's match against Australia in a rich vein of form. In his last Test match, against Sri Lanka, he failed to get any runs in the first innings, and scored only six in the second.

The other two matches in the series are at the same ground on Thursday and Saturday.

The teams:

Australia (from): Ricky Ponting (Capt.), Adam Gilchrist, Michael Clarke, Jason Gillespie, Ian Harvey, Matthew Hayden, Brad Hogg, Michael Kasprowicz, Darren Lehmann, Damien Martyn, Glenn McGrath, Andrew Symonds, Shane Watson and Brad Williams.

Zimbabwe: Tatenda Taibu (Capt.), Dion Ebrahim, Stuart Matsikenyere, Brendan Taylor, Elton Chigumbura, Alester Maregwede, Douglas Hondo, Tinashe Panyangara, Mark Vermeulen, Tawanda Mpariwa, Mluleki Nkala, Vusimuzi Sibanda, Edward Rainsford and Waddington Mwayenga. — Agencies.

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