Australia will next face South Africa on October 12 in the CWC 2023.
Australia’s two-time World Cup-winning captain Ricky Ponting was not really impressed with the Pat Cummins-led Australian team’s efforts in their ICC Cricket World Cup 2023 opener against India.
After Australia kicked off their Cricket World Cup 2023 campaign with a six-wicket loss to Team India, Ponting warned Pat Cummins and co. that they couldn’t afford another loss in the tournament. Notably, Australia will next face South Africa on October 12 in the CWC 2023 in Lucknow.
Ricky Ponting said on the latest episode of The ICC Review podcast: “Australia, to me, looked to be a fair way off the mark, to be honest, in that game against India. 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.”
However, Ponting hopes that Cummins and co. will make a strong comeback on the back of having so many all-rounders in their squad for the tournament.
Ponting continued, “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 has a lone specialist spinner in Adam Zampa in their CWC 2023 squad, and Ponting said that he must return to form if they want to do well in the tournament. He noted, “The other thing that I probably learned is that they're going to need Adam Zampa bowling well. It's as simple as that.”
Ponting signed off by saying, “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.”