Australia can successfully defend its World Cup title in England this year with Steve Smith and David Warner back in the fray, newly-appointed assistant coach Ricky Ponting said Sunday. His upbeat assessment comes despite the misfiring team losing its two most recent ODI series at home, to India and South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAbsolutely, I actually do,\u201d said Ponting when asked in Melbourne if Australia could win the World Cup.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIndia and England are probably the two standout teams right now but if you add Warner and Smith back into that lineup, I think that team looks as strong as any.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cConditions in England will suit our style of play,\u201d added Ponting, who was appointed on Friday as assistant to coach Justin Langer for the World Cup, focusing on the batting group. \u201cI think I have a pretty good grasp on what it takes for tournaments like that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHopefully I can have an impact right from the start. The feedback from the boys has been positive.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Smith and Warner are available for selection again from March 29, when their one-year bans for ball-tampering expire. Cameron Bancroft, who was suspended for nine months, is already back playing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOnce we get Warner and Smith and Bancroft back into the fray, and looking ahead to the World Cup, I don\u2019t think they\u2019ll be too many better teams on paper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYou\u2019ve got a lot of experience as well as a fair bit of youth going into that tournament,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAny team I\u2019ve been a part of, we\u2019ve always had a really good mix of youth and experience and this current group will certainly have that going into the World Cup.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ponting, who played 375 one-dayers and 168 Tests, previously worked as an assistant with Australia\u2019s Twenty20 side in 2017 and 2018.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Australia can successfully defend its World Cup title in England this year with Steve Smith and David Warner back in the fray, newly-appointed assistant coach Ricky Ponting said Sunday. His upbeat assessment comes despite the misfiring team losing its two most recent ODI series at home, to India and South Africa. \u201cAbsolutely, I actually do,\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":54614,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-54613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54613"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54613\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54615,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54613\/revisions\/54615"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}