Australia exudes confidence on World Cup final eve

Bridgetown, Barbados, Apr 27 (UNI) A confident Australian skipper Ricky Ponting today said his team was ''ideally prepared for the big battle tomorrow''.

''We have prepared hard for this occasion,'' Ponting told mediapersons on the eve of the cricket World Cup final against Sri Lanka.

''Our preparation is perfect and every thing is in order,'' he said, adding, ''the boys are excited and looking up for the contest.'' ''We had a good training session yesterday and a top up session today. The guys are all fit and very excited. We are looking to get down to business tomorrow,'' said the Aussie Captain.

When asked how he feels to be a member of the third consecutive win at the World Cup, Ponting corrected the journalist saying, ''Let us not jump to the conclusion, I have yet to play the third final, which is slated for tomorrow.'' ''We got a game to play and we are not at all thinking about three titles or 29 wins in a row. All through the last seven weeks this has never come up among the team. If we happen to win the game may be we will talk about it. It is just going out there and giving ourselves the best chance. We have hundred overs of cricket to play and we have thoroughly enjoyed that so far,'' the skipper said.

He said we started the cricket season with three aims and we have so far achieved two-winning the Champions trophy and regaining the Ashes and third one is retaining the World Cup title.

Ponting agreed that Sri Lanka is a tough side saying, ''They have very good bowling attack.'' He picked up Lasith Malinga for special praise and said, ''Malinga's action is pretty unique and so I thought I should do a bit of top up work with my skills. Some sort of stimulation. We will be coming across him tomorrow so it is a good preparation.'' ''We watched him pretty closely against New Zealand and he bowled very well and had their top order batsmen in trouble. Certainly he will be a key with the new ball. He has a good pace and bounce, yes we will have to play well against him,'' he pointed out.

Malinga will be the key for Sri Lanka, though they have other good bowlers like Murli and Vass also in their ranks.

UNI