Bengaluru, Feb 14: Ricky Ponting, recovering from a finger injury, is back in the Australian side and ready to lead them in the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011. After losing to India in their first warm-up match in Bengaluru, Ponting spoke to the media about the game and his form.

Excerpts from the interaction

On the way the pitch behaved

It was certainly [strange] right through the day. I think [it] acted [the] same [way] for both teams though. In terms of the wicket, [in the] the second innings, [the] ball didn’t come on to the bat the whole day. Hopefully we [will] get better wickets than that one.

On his reaction to an Indian pitch that had both bounce and turn

It was under-prepared, this one spun a bit. We have got a game here in a couple of days. If we get that wicket again it would be an interesting game again. For us, as the tournament goes on, we know we could get wickets that would turn a bit more in the second innings of the game. So we have to find a way to win games in tough conditions.

On being able to middle the ball after being out of action for a while

Yeah, [the ball] was hitting the middle of the bat [towards the end]. It was nice to spend some time in the middle. It’s been five or six weeks since I played a game. Everybody had three or four training sessions before the game today so it’s nice to get some time in the middle. The boys are getting another warm-up game against South Africa. I hope we can get something out of that, get into form and hit the ground running.