AT LAST. After a week of meaningless mismatches, the serious business of the ICC Champions Trophy starts at the Oval today when Australia face New Zealand in a heavyweight contest that will see one of them knocked out of the tournament and the other go through to play England or Sri Lanka in the semi-finals.
Neither team have had much sparring practice because of the weakness of the opposition — the United States — and the weather, but they are up for the fight, with Ricky Ponting, the Australia captain, determined to lift the trophy for the first time and Stephen Fleming, his New Zealand counterpart, relishing the challenge.
“It’s a good tournament that we really enjoy playing in,” Ponting said. “New Zealand tend to lift their game when they play Australia, but we’ve won our last six games against them, so we’re pretty confident.”
Fleming knows what his players are up against. “It’s the greatest challenge you can have playing against a world champion side,” he said.
“It’s going to take 100 overs of very good cricket and one or two people to have a very good day because they’re a very talented side. We know from past occasions that you can get them on the ropes and they keep scrambling out.”
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The last time they did that, New Zealand had Shane Bond in their team, but their fastest bowler is missing with a long-term injury. Australia must decide whether to leave out Glenn McGrath or Brett Lee, with Ponting saying that if they played four fast bowlers, they would not complete their 50 overs in time.
TELEVISION: Australia v New Zealand, live on Sky Sports 1 from 10am