Australia win toss, decide to chase in 22 over match

St Peter's, Antigua, Mar 31 (UNI) Australia skipper Ricky Ponting won the toss and decided to field in their second Super Eight league match against Bangladesh which has been reduced to 22 overs each fixture in the Cricket World Cup at Sir Vivian Richards ground here today.

Bangladesh's debut in the Super Eight phase was delayed as huge wet patches on either side of the ground held up the start of play for five hours.

Both sides have retained the Playing XIs which figured in their previous matches.

After the fourth inspection at 1400 hours local time, umpires Aleem Dar and Billy Bowden announced their decision to start the match at 1430 hours which will have a total of 44 overs as against regular 100 overs.

Australia are already on four points, two from the league stage and two from their opening win over the West Indies Speaking ahead of this match, Bangladesh skipper Habibul Bashar, had exuded confident saying: ''We're not finished yet. It is not going to be easy; it will be very tough. But we believe it is not an impossible task.'' ''We had a good win against New Zealand, another against India -- and we strongly believe that if we play well together on our day we can beat anyone.'' Ricky Ponting, however, is unfazed by the talk.

''The cricket you've seen us play the last few weeks would indicate that the way we are going at the moment, that we should be able to play cricket good enough to win this game. That's all we've been focused on the last couple of days,'' he said.

Teams: Australia: R Ponting (Capt), N Bracken, M Clarke, A Gilchrist, M Hayden, Brad Hogg, M Hussey, G McGrath, A Symonds, S Tait, S Watson Bangladesh: Habibul Bashar (capt), Abdur Razzak, Aftab Ahmed, Mashrafe Mortaza, Mohammad Ashraful, Mohammad Rafique, Mushfiqur Rahim, Saqibul Hasan, Shahriar Nafees, Syed Rasel, Tamim Iqbal Umpires: Aleem Dar (Pakistan) and Billy Bowden (New Zealand). TV umpire Rudy Koertzen (South Africa), Match referee BC Broad (England).

UNI