Ponting believes Australia will bounce back against South Africa
Former Australia captain Ricky Ponting has faith in the depth of his former side and believes they will quickly bounce back from the loss in their opening match and put their campaign at the ongoing ICC ODI World Cup back on track.
Australia lost against India by six wickets in Chennai on Sunday in their opening game of the 10-team tournament, where the Indian spinners proved too much to handle for the Aussies.
Ponting wasn't impressed by the performance of the Pat Cummins-led team in the first match and said they need to bounce back in their next match, which will be against South Africa in Lucknow on Thursday.
The Proteas posted the highest ever World Cup total ever, 428-5, in their opening match against Sri Lanka and won by 102 runs.
Still, Ponting believes that the Australians have enough talent in their squad to stop the momentum of the high-flying South Africans and open their account in the competition.
"Australia, to me, looked to be a fair way off the mark, to be honest, in that game against India," Ponting said on a recent episode of The ICC Review podcast.
"You can't afford to be zip-and-two [0-2] in a World Cup. We know how important it is to finish up the top of the table. But I've still got full faith in their squad. It is a very good squad, a very talented squad. We know there's a lot of all-rounders in that side."
Australia went with one frontline spinner in the match against India, leg-spinner Adam Zampa.
But the wrist spinner didn't really make an impression on spin-friendly conditions in Chennai, going wicketless while conceding 53 runs off eight overs.
Zampa is the only full-time spinner in the Australia squad after off-spinner Ashton Agar got ruled out of the tournament due to injury.
So, for Aussies to do well, Ponting feels that Zampa needs to fire.
"They're going to need Adam Zampa bowling well. It's as simple as that," Ponting said.
"With only Zampa and (Glenn) Maxwell as the recognised spinners in their playing XI for that first game, then a lot of the wicket-taking onus is going to come back on Zampa. It didn't happen in game one."
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