Australia train before England clash - Sports News - Fanatics - the world's biggest events

Australia train before England clash

By Greg Buckle 09/03/2007 05:50:39 AM Comments (0)

Australia will have their final training session before what is expected to be a tense World Cup practice match with England on Friday (12.30am Saturday AEDT) at the Arnos Vale ground in St Vincent.

While Australia will be keen to gain some revenge after their shock 2-0 loss in the tri-series finals against England in Melbourne and Sydney last month, the world champions and England both agreed on the importance of trialling their spin options with a view to the tournament proper, starting on March 13.

Australia's first tournament game is in St Kitts against Scotland on March 14.

England have brought in specialist spin-bowling coach Jeremy Snape for a 10-day stint while Australia's bowling mentor Troy Cooley has been having special one-on-one sessions at training with Australia's left-arm wrist-spinner Brad Hogg.

Hogg has not taken a wicket in six consecutive games for Australia, including Tuesday's warm-up against Zimbabwe when the Australians made 7-290 and restricted the Africans to 7-184 in reply.

"I don't think you need a specialist spinning coach in to help these guys out," Australian captain Ricky Ponting said.

"They've actually had a meeting today back at the hotel. The slow-bowling group have got together and had a talk about how they are going to go about bowling on these sort of wickets.

"This one here (at St Vincents) is probably going to be a fair bit slower and probably spin more than most of them will.

"We've got Symmo (injured all-rounder Andrew Symonds) and Hoggy and Brad Hodge who did a good job for us (taking 1-26 off six against Zimbabwe) and no doubt he's going to do a bit of bowling through this tournament.

"I'm really comfortable with the make-up that we've got. It's important the finger-spinners we have got are working hard in the next couple of weeks because they are going to get a chance to play a part."

Only Symonds (bicep) and opener Matthew Hayden (broken toe) are unavailable for Australia, who will field a 13-man line-up for the practice match.

Brought to you by AAP AAP © 2024 AAP

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