Ponting: Australia in rude health

Captain Ricky Ponting claims there will be "no excuses" from hs players if they fail to perform in the Champions Trophy

Captain Ricky Ponting insists fatigue will not be a problem for Australia during the Champions Trophy following the rigours of a four-month tour of England.

Ponting’s side arrived in England in May and embarked on a punishing schedule that has seen them compete in the World Twenty20, the five-Test Ashes series and a seven-match one-day series.

Australia showed few signs of wear and tear during the limited-overs games, although they narrowly missed out on a record-breaking series whitewash after falling to a four-wicket defeat to England in the final game at Chester-le-Street yesterday.

Australia, current holders of the World Cup and the Champions Trophy, were also able to rest a number of their key performers during the series, most notably Ponting himself, who returned Down Under for two weeks after the Ashes to rest.

Australia, however, face a four-day turnaround between arriving in South Africa tomorrow morning and their first match of the Champions Trophy against West Indies in Johannesburg on Saturday.

And while Ponting agrees the international cricket calendar is becoming increasingly more hectic, he does not believe tiredness will be a factor for his team ahead of the brief two-week tournament.

“We have been (concerned about the schedule) for a while,” said Ponting, who earlier this month retired from international Twenty20 cricket to allow himself extra scope for rest.

“Players and players’ associations have stressed how difficult it’s becoming for international players to play at their best for four or five months at a time.

“There’s a few players that have played the majority of those games through the past four or five months, so it’s been tough on them.

Ponting becomes the first of Graeme Swann's five victims at Chester-le-Street - but insists playing spin is not an issue

“But we haven’t got a lot of games in the Champions Trophy, so we needed to have a certain number of games in our players before then.

“Therefore there will be no excuses in our team as to why their skills aren’t up to shape.

“We know we’ve got a couple of weeks’ break after the Champions Trophy, so let’s hope we go there and peak at the right time and play as well as we have during this tournament.”

Defeat at the Riverside came largely as a result of off-spinner Graeme Swann’s career-best figures of 5-28 as Australia were bowled out for 176.

Pakistan’s Shahid Afridi and South Africa’s Roelof van der Merwe have also caused Australia problems in recent times, but Ponting scoffed at suggestions that his side had a weakness against spin.

“We have played their (England’s) spinners really well through this series; he (Swann) has had one good result,” Ponting said.

“But we played (Adil) Rashid really well in the games he played and we played Swann really well in the first couple of games, so we’re not concerned about that.

“I wouldn't expect the wickets in Johannesburg and Pretoria would spin as much, but even if they do, we have got a a number of players who have played well and performed well in spinning conditions.

“We play a lot of our one-day cricket is sub-continental-type conditions. Most one-day wickets are normally pretty dry and offer a little bit for the spinners anyway, so I wouldn't read too much into it.”