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MELBOURNE, Australia, Oct 6 (AFP): The world team must bat patiently and build more partnerships if it is to keep the one-day Super Series alive, New Zealander Daniel Vettori said here Thursday.
Australia, smarting from the universal criticism of last month's Ashes failure in England, crushed the cream of world cricket to claim the opening match by 93 runs Wednesday and can take the series with victory in Friday's second game.
The motivated Australians hit 255 for eight off their 50 overs and then ran through the world all-stars for 162 in 41.3 overs in a massive anti-climax.
"The biggest thing is that we wanted to bat in partnerships, we thought we may have tried to win the game too early and with such a star-studded batting lineup the guys are used to taking responsibility on themselves to win games," said Vettori, one of the few world stars to impress.
"I think with so many great batsmen you can take your time a bit more and build partnerships and that's what wins most cricket games."
The left-arm spinner, who captured 4-33 off 10 overs, scored 15 and took a great diving catch for the world team, said the Super Series concept was in jeopardy if the world XI did not win the second match of the three-game series.
"If we lose like that again we're going to be hugely disappointed but we're confident we can turn it around and turn it around quickly," Vettori told reporters Thursday.
"We realise how important it is that we put up a much-improved showing in the next game.
"For the series to be a success, people want to see a 2-1 result whichever way it goes and a close-fought Test match (in Sydney next week) for it to have some meaning, and that's what we're certainly here for and we're going to try and turn that around as quickly as possible."
Vettori countered suggestions that the world team did not appear to have the same intensity as Ricky Ponting's team in the opening game and that they looked like they were a collection of players drawn from different continents and time zones.
"There was an immense desire in our team to win. We talked a lot about coming here and the only reason we were coming here was to win," he said.
Teams
Australia - Adam Gilchrist, Simon Katich, Ricky Ponting (captain), Damien Martyn, Michael Clarke, Andrew Symonds, Michael Hussey, Shane Watson, Cameron White, Brett Lee, Nathan Bracken, Stuart Clark. (super sub to be named)
World XI (from) - Shaun Pollock (captain), Brian Lara, Shoaib Akhtar, Rahul Dravid, Andrew Flintoff, Chris Gayle, Jacques Kallis, Muttiah Muralitharan, Kevin Pietersen, Kumar Sangakkara, Virender Sehwag, Daniel Vettori (super sub to be named).
Umpires: Rudi Koertzen (RSA) Darrell Hair (AUS).
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