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ICC CRICKET WORLD CUPMarch 14, 2015Michael ClarkeMitchell StarcHOBART, TASMANIA Q. Michael, how significant is it to get that victory and to be able to finish on that side of the draw? MICHAEL CLARKE: It's always nice to win. There's no doubt about that. And the way we won, as well, we knew that there was rain forecast into this afternoon, so it was important that we try to bowl Scotland out. Fortunately that worked, and credit to the bowlers with their execution. Obviously Starcky was outstanding again, but I thought the other guys did a great job in continuing to look to take wickets. I thought our fielding was really good again, catching, and then to make the runs, it obviously changed the order a little bit to give guys a hit, but our main goal was to try and win the game, and as we've seen, rain throughout the night, guys had to sacrifice themselves for the team and score as quickly as possible, especially at the end there. It's a real positive for us going into the quarterfinal having another win, one little hiccup against New Zealand that is in the front of our minds, and we make sure no matter who we play against now we're fully focused and playing our best cricket because obviously it's a knockout stage now. Who we play against, we're still unsure. We know we're playing in Adelaide, and we know we finished second in our draw. Yeah, that's a positive. I would like to have not lost a game, but as you know, once you get to the quarterfinals, that's the most important part, getting there firstly and then having success in that first quarterfinal to hopefully make a semi. Q. Michael, how anxious did it get particularly that first shower seemed particularly heavy? Were you always confident that the forecast was such that you'd get a result or were you thinking we might get rained out here? MICHAEL CLARKE: Oh, I think there was obviously doubt about getting a result. There was rain forecast and it didn't look great. There was always a fair bit of wind, so we had confidence that would continue to blow the rain away, but it could also blow rain in. But at the end of the day the fact we knew we were very qualified for a quarterfinal was a positive, it's just we wanted to win this game to finish second rather than third or fourth, so that was our main focus on making sure we did everything we could to try and win this game. Q. You identified yesterday, yourself, Watson and Jim Faulkner as needing some time in the middle. You got a fairly big hit out there. Do you think they'll be happy and satisfied with the brief time they had there in that rain delay? MICHAEL CLARKE: I dearly would have liked all three of us to get a hundred each. I think we did whatever we could. We made the most of whatever opportunity we had. I think most importantly, everybody in the squad mentally is ready to go. I still felt a little bit rusty there with the bat. I don't think Watty would have played that shot if he wasn't putting the team first and Jimmy Faulk had to come in and try and smack it at the end there. We made the most of it. Mentally all the guys are switched on, and because they're training so well that makes life a lot easier, it's just today things worked out nicely. It would have been ideal for us to spend as much time in the middle as possible. All three of us got a bat, so that's better than how it could have been. Q. Mitch, you've gone to the top of the wicket-taking tally for the tournament. How much confidence are you taking into the knockout stage now? MITCHELL STARC: Yeah, ball is coming out nicely, I can't complain at all. Well, it's coming out consistently, but more importantly we're winning games and that's all that matters. As long as we're winning games, confidence is going to be high, and especially going into the knockout stages, taking a bit of momentum. As Michael said, some guys got some time in the middle. I think we're all bowling quite well, we're training well, so yeah, personally it's just nice to see the ball coming out consistently. Working on different plans, whether it be in training or in the game, but it's nice see them coming off. Things we can work on, as always, things that we can improve on, but I think today was just nice to see that we all did the basics very well as a fielding unit, as a bowling unit, and then some pretty much very selfless cricket there to really get us over the line had an impact. Q. Mike, how would you assess patted Pat Cummins' performance? He came back strongly but went for a few boundaries, as well. MITCHELL STARC: Yeah, look, he's obviously had a little bit of a niggle there and he's come back well. He bowled quick, bowled really good balls, got three wickets, and he went for a couple of runs, but I think the writing was on the wall for them; they were seven down and chancing their arm. I don't think he bowled badly at all. He bowled some really good balls that got hit for runs. He's only going to get better. He's only 21. He's had a couple days off from bowling. He'll be better off for the run, and a couple days' training in Adelaide, he'll be ready to go. Q. Michael, when you came back from the resumption, was it -- I guess because Mitch had shown his form for a long time, and you're like, we need to end this quickly, and is that why you gave the ball to Mitch at that stage? MICHAEL CLARKE: I don't know the exact reason why I gave the ball to -- it was going to be both Mitchells, probably because they're our most experienced two bowlers. They were starting to put a partnership together, so I wanted to break that partnership, so Starcky was going to bowl and Johnno was going to bowl the top end, and probably because they've both done it before a number of times. Q. How much do you like the Adelaide pitch, especially looking forward to performing there? How much do you enjoy it? MICHAEL CLARKE: Not as much as I enjoy Sydney. Look, it's always nice to play in Australia, we've had a few games there. We had a warm-up game there obviously where we all played quite well with bat and ball. Look, it's a ground that we've all played some cricket at and we all know quite well. So depending on whoever we play, which comes out of tomorrow's game, we'll be ready to go. We've got plenty of time to train, and I don't think that wicket changes too much in terms of what we think we're going to get. Look, we'll prepare well as we have done for the whole World Cup and be ready to go no matter what we face. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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