 Ponting made his 50th one-day fifty in Melbourne |
Captain Ricky Ponting says Australia have improved as the VB Series has gone on after their win over South Africa. The hosts, who were already through to the best-of-three finals, won by 80 runs in Melbourne and Ponting said: "It was an excellent all-round performance.
"We always try to time our run during these competitions and build our momentum and we're getting better."
South Africa skipper Graeme Smith said: "We're disappointed, but we're going to have to pick ourselves up again."
Smith's men were on top early in the Australia innings, before Andrew Symonds and Mike Hussey helped the home side blast 60 runs from the last four overs and post a total of 281-7.
The Proteas were never in the hunt after losing Smith second ball, and struggled to get the ball away on a slow pitch at the Telstra Dome.
"Batting second was always going to be difficult so keeping them to a score of around 230 was going to be important for us," Smith added.
"At one stage we probably had them there and we let it slip in the last 10 overs, especially the last five."
MMIX
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