Chasing big World Cup totals on the small grounds of the Caribbean is more difficult than defending them because you can only pursue at one pace — absolutely flat out. That seems to be Ricky Ponting’s theory after Australia’s 83-run win over South Africa on Saturday.Ponting thinks that any scoring lulls at the top of the order when in pursuit increase the likelihood of wickets falling and put more pressure on batsmen lower down who aren’t as equipped to handle it.“I knew we’d post a big total,” Ponting said. “When we did, they only had one option: that is to come out and play that way. But when you do play that way you’re risk-taking as well. If we could get some new batsmen in there with the run-rate still around seven or eight an over, then there was going to be a lot of pressure on guys down the order.”Ponting argued that the margin for error when chasing is smaller because the run-rates required are so demanding.“Our 377 was such a huge score,” he said. “It doesn’t matter where you’re playing or on what wicket, that’s a huge score, and if you’re going to chase that down you’re going to have to do lots of things exceptionally well for long periods of time.“Whenever a side is chasing a total like that, if they have one little slip-up or one brilliant piece of fielding from us, then it puts them on the back-foot pretty quickly.”Australia now take on West Indies, undefeated leaders in Group D, at Antigua on Tuesday and take with them these two competition points and a very healthy run-rate.“They’re a very dangerous team: they’re on their home soil, they should know these conditions very well and they’ll have great crowd support from all over the Caribbean,” Ponting said of the West Indies. South Africa could be four points behind other teams if they lose to the in-form Sri Lanka in the Super 8s in Guyana on Wednesday.-Rob Murray
