Ponting wants more success

Less than a day after he led his side to a historic third successive World Cup victory, Australian captain Ricky Ponting has said there is no reason Australia shouldn’t continue its dominance in international cricket.

“I fully expect us to win every game we play, it doesn’t matter what the make-up of the team is,” he said after leading his side to World Cup victory after Australia’s 53 run win over Sri Lanka in Barbados.

“When we get some younger guys in the Test and one-day side in the next few months I still expect us to win.”

“I know the quality of those players is first-class; our domestic cricket is very strong and we’ve seen the young guys play a fair bit.

“When they do come into the Test and one-day sides I’d like to think that the performances won’t drop off at all. I’m not worried – I’m looking at it as a more exciting time in my career.”

Ricky Ponting was all smiles yesterday after ending off what has been stellar summer for the Australians, achieving all the goals set by the side after the 2005 Ashes loss in England.

Defeated captain, Mahela Jayawardene, has expressed his disappointment at losing the final and credited the brilliance of Adam Gilchrist, who blasted 149 off 104 balls, as the difference between the two sides.

“I thought we played really good cricket up to now, but that was a very special innings from Gilly,” he said after the match.

“The way he batted in a World Cup final was brilliant and totally took the game away from us. It was simply a brilliant innings from Gilchrist, unfortunately I was the opposition captain watching it.

“I’m obviously disappointed to lose the final. This was a lifetime opportunity of winning the World Cup but it was taken away by a great innings.

“It was solid hitting, you can’t control the flow of runs when Gilchrist’s in such form. He did it to us once in the final of an Australian Tri-Series.”