By IANS
Hyderabad : Ricky Ponting, who is likely to return to lead Australia in their third one-day international against India here Friday, said his team was not worried by the new aggressive look of the Indian team and would play “best aggressive” cricket – and leave all the talking to India.
With tensions rising between the two teams in the ongoing seven match series over the angry exchanges between some members, Ponting felt that the new brave front the Indians were putting up was not working against his side.
“That is not the way they generally play their cricket, so they have put on some sort of a brave face. We have played some great cricket. I am looking forward to playing some better cricket,” he said at a news conference Thursday.
“They are the ones who have come out and made all the statements since we’ve been here, this new India and the new aggressive outlook, the way they are going to play. We will go and play the best aggressive cricket we can and leave all the talking to the Indians,” he said.
Ponting, who missed the first two matches due to injury, is likely to return to lead the side, which is leading the series 1-0 after an emphatic 84-run win at Kochi.
Ponting took pot shots at Indian off-spinner Harbhajan Singh for accusing the Australians of being vulgar and bad losers and accused him of being able to dish out verbal abuse but not able to take it in return.
“He (Harbhajan) has plenty to say on the field and then whenever someone says something back to him he is the first one to run away from it.”
After being stumped off Michael Clarke’s bowling during the second one-day at Kochi, Harbhajan stopped mid-pitch and engaged in a brief exchange with the Australians.
Pacer Sreesanth, whose antics on the field have come under criticism from different quarters, also had some exchanges with the Australians in the same match.
The Australian skipper said the issue of sledging by Australians was blown out of proportion.
“If we were ever as bad as people have said you would have seen a lot more Australians being reported, especially in the last couple of years. Not many, if any, have been for sledging over the last couple of years, if at all.”
“I don’t really know what happened too much the other day but if you look at his (Harbhajan’s) record and Sreesanth’s record over the last few years and they have been involved in a lot of those altercations.”
Despite leading the series, Ponting said his team would not take things for granted and would like to keep the momentum going.
“We will not take anything for granted and steadily build our way through. The last thing you want to do when you have the momentum going your way is to hand over the momentum to the opposition.”