Australia are set to hand John Hastings his World Cup debut for the
Group A match against Canada, with strike bowler Shaun Tait due for a
rest.
Skipper Ricky Ponting says with Australia playing three
games in seven days, the South Australian speedster is in line to have a
break ahead of Saturday’s clash with Pakistan in Colombo.
“If he
(Tait) was to go, then Hastings would come in and then we look at what
we do with the new ball,” Ponting told reporters on Tuesday.
“That would create some issues, but that’d be the obvious change we’d look at.”
Victoria
medium-pacer Hastings might be better suited to first-change, leaving
Ponting with the options of promoting Mitchell Johnson to new-ball
duties or giving off-spinner Jason Krejza the opening role.
Australia
will be keen to give a more impressive showing in Bangalore on
Wednesday against Canada than Sunday’s effort against World No.13 Kenya,
when the defending champions scored a 60-run win.
“I had a
little bit of a talk with the coach (Tim Nielsen) and we felt it was one
of those games where we were rusty with our skills,” Ponting said, in
reference to the fact the Kenya game was Australia’s first match for
eight days.
“As the (Kenya) innings went on, with them not really
looking to chase the runs (scoring 6-264 in reply to Australia’s
6-324), it looked a bit worse from the outside.
“They didn’t take
any risks against the spinners outside the power play overs. We were a
bit worried that our quicks and spinners through the middle didn’t take
wickets we would have liked against a side like that.”
Tait and
Brett Lee took three wickets between them and the other three wickets
fell to run-outs, with spinners Krejza and Steve Smith unable to break
through.
“But it was good to get out and blow some cobwebs out and you’ll see a better performance tomorrow,” Ponting said.
It
will be a big occasion for Krejza as he takes on Canada all-rounder
John Davison, the former Shield player who is also Cricket Australia’s
spin coach.
