MELBOURNE: Ricky Ponting is confident Australia can get the better of Shahid Afridi, the new Pakistan captain, during the two Tests in England in July.
Afridi will be the third man to captain Pakistan in Tests since the start of 2009 and Ponting is unconvinced that he is one of Pakistan’s best 11 Test players. Ponting said he was confident Australia’s pace attack would be able to counter Afridi’s attacking style in the five-day game.
“Yeah I’m pretty sure we do,” Ponting told Ausralian news agency. “He hasn’t played much Test cricket of late, has he? If you read between the lines he’s almost in there as that leader and captain, not necessarily one of their best Test players. So we’ll test him out.
“Even in the one -dayers in Australia last season with our quicks bowling the way they did to him, I think we can sort him out in Test cricket for sure. I see Shoaib Malik’s life ban has been lifted as well, so who knows what happens around their set-up, but we know they’re a dangerous team.
“I guess with him being captain of the Twenty20 side it was a natural progression for him to be the Test captain with all the rest of the guys they’ve tried there not having succeeded. But that’s all irrelevant stuff to us, it doesn’t matter who’s captain and it doesn’t matter who’s playing, we just have to make sure we’re focusing on our little things to be the best team we can be when we play them.”
The two Tests at Lord’s and Headingley could be Australia’s last five-day outings before the Ashes, although their October tour of India could yet include two Test matches. However, Ponting said it was important not to look too far ahead and lose sight of the challenge that Pakistan will pose.
“I guess we speak pretty loosely don’t we about looking forward to the Ashes and all that, and we are, but it’s not with both eyes,” he said. “We’ve got one eye on that and one eye on what we need to get in place to make sure we’re the best team we can be for November.”
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