Ponting lays into Australia

Captain Ricky Ponting claimed Australia’s eight-wicket defeat by South Africa in Adelaide was their “worst performance of the summer”.

A closely-contested Commonwealth Bank Series was blown apart yesterday as the Proteas bowled Australia out for 222 in the fourth one-day international before overhauling their target with 11.5 overs to spare.

Victory secured the one-day series for South Africa with a game to play, the tourists having also also beaten Australia in a competitive Test series.

“Right through the Test series and the first three games of this series we'd been right into the contest until the last over or the last couple of overs of every game," Ponting said.

"An eight-wicket loss with 12 overs to go is a big loss in a one-day game. We've come up a long way short on this occasion - that's our worst performance of the summer by a long way.

"We've obviously been comprehensively beaten. Once again with our batting we got ourselves into a reasonable position – 110 for two and a few overs later we are 130 for five – and that's been the tale right through this series to date.

Ricky Ponting admitted Australia were well off the pace during the crushing defeat in Adelaide

"Five overs cost us from going from once again getting up near a 280 to 300 sort of score, to struggle to 220 as you saw on a very, very good batting wicket and a very fast outfield.

"That total was never ever going to be enough if they played well and we didn't take wickets with the new ball."

Ponting admitted defeat hurt more because the team had disappointed their fans on Australia Day.

"I was pretty excited in the fact after the other night in Sydney, even though we lost, I thought that the guys would really be able to bounce back knowing what this day means to the country and how much it means to us to represent our country on Australia Day," he said.

Ponting top-scored for Australia at the Adelaide Oval with 63 off 70 balls but he said he was as guilty as anyone for their below-par total.

"Getting 40s and 50s in cricket games don't win you anything and here I am getting 60 today and getting out," he added.

Ponting and Australia head to WACA to “salvage some pride” in the final game of the series on Friday, which is followed by a one-day series against New Zealand.

“We are going to need to play better than we have over the last couple of weeks if we want to turn our cricket around and we need to do it pretty quickly,” said Ponting.