Australia captain Ricky Ponting saluted his side's fast bowlers after they overwhelmed New Zealand in a crushing seven-wicket World Cup win at the VCA Ground here on Friday.
Australia captain Ricky Ponting saluted his side's fast bowlers after they overwhelmed New Zealand in a crushing seven-wicket World Cup win at the VCA Ground here on Friday.
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The reigning world champions skittled out the Kiwis for just 206 with left-arm quick Mitchell Johnson leading the way with four wickets for 33 runs in a man-of-the-match display.
New Zealand were 73 for six at one stage and although they mounted something of a lower-order recovery, Australia still won with 16 overs to spare as they made short work of getting the 207 they needed for victory.
"I think you've got to be happy with a result like that," Ponting said.
"New Zealand are a very competitive one-day team, have been in most big one-day tournaments over the past five or six events that we've had.
"For us to come out today and win as well as we did was really satisfying."
"I thought our bowling was terrific, albeit probably from the first three or four overs of the game. After that, we really took control of the game.
"When Mitch came on, the early breakthrough he got really put New Zealand on the back foot and pretty much put them out of the game really early."
Johnson who took two wickets in an over to get rid of dangerman Jesse Ryder and James Franklin said: "The role that I've got as a first-change bowler, it's something I always enjoy.
"I'm not so worried about my economy rate, I don't think about that when I'm out there."
He added: "I'm just trying to bowl the best ball that I can, as many times as I can, and bowl to the fields that I've got.
"It's working for me at the moment so I need to keep working on it in all the training sessions that I have."
Johnson has enjoyed success in India before and he said: "It probably suits the bang-the-wicket kind of bowling that I like, the change-ups that I use.
"I just really enjoy the challenges over here of these conditions."
"I saw the game between the Netherlands and England (on Tuesday) and it looked like a really good wicket.
"I just really tried to bang it in through my (typical) length, hitting the top of off-stump, and probably a lot tighter lines than I have in the past.
"It put them under a bit of pressure, maybe it's why I got the wickets."
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