“We must crush England”: Ponting

Ricky Ponting has told his team that it’s vital they crush England in the Champions Trophy to get the mental edge leading into the Ashes.

Australia play England in Jaipur on October 21 and Ponting told media that “we’d like to think we could make some sort of statement in that game.”

Ponting down played the comment a little however by saying “The changeover from one-day players to Test players is quite dramatic so you don’t look at the parallel too much”.

Glenn McGrath however said the winner will “most definitely take a slight edge,” and followed it up by saying England’s key player Andrew Flintoff would be under a huge amount of pressure “because he plays such a pivotal role in the batting line-up and the bowling line-up”.

Australia kick off their Champions Trophy campaign against a qualifier which is expected to be either the West Indies or Sri Lanka, while England play hosts India in the first match of the group stage.