Preserving wickets is going to be our strategy: Ponting

Australia captain Ricky Ponting on Monday said that preserving wickets till the middle overs and negotiating the spinners will be key to their strategy in the remainder of the World Cup matches.

After commencing their title defence in style with an emphatic 91-run victory over Zimbabwe here today, Ponting said keeping wickets in hand will also help them during the batting powerplays.

"Preserving wickets is going to be our strategy through the tournament. We will be looking to preserve wickets till the middle overs. That will help in negotiating spinners and accelerate during powerplays. The wicket today played real good. Luckily, we kept wickets in hand and got us to a good total," Ponting said.

Ponting said that the Motera strip was slow and difficult to bat on.

"The wicket was slow. It was tough to get any pace on the ball. The Zimbabwean spinners bowled well and it was difficult to get going. They bowled and fielded really well," he said. Zimbabwe captain Elton Chigumbura said the side missed a fifth bowler.

"The fifth bowler is something we have to work on as well. But overall our bowling and fielding were superb. We just lost too many wickets up front," he said.

The skipper praised his bowlers for not giving Australians the chance to score big.

"I thought we restricted them to the score we wanted to chase. But we have to work on our batting," he said. Man of the Match Shane Watson said this game will help them combat spin as the tournament progresses.

"There will be a lot of spinners used against us. The ball did not spin as much on this wicket. This game was good practice to combat spin as the tournament progresses," he said.

He admitted that it took him some time to get used to the conditions.

"But it's nice to get used to different conditions and find a way ... a good time to get a bit of practice in," he said.