October 21, 2006	Saturday	Ramazan 27, 1427

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JAIPUR, Oct 20: Australia captain Ricky Ponting and his England counterpart Andrew Flintoff do not believe their vital Champions Trophy match here on Saturday is a prelude to next month's Ashes.

“It is our second game in this tournament and I do not see this having a lot to do with the Ashes. It is an important, knock-out game for both the teams,” Ponting told reporters on Friday.

“Once we go back to Australia, we will probably start worrying about the Ashes. It has been a long time since the Ashes but it does not feel like so. Right now, we are focussing on tomorrow's game.”

Australia and England need to win the match to keep alive their hopes of qualifying for the semi-finals. Both have suffered one defeat in the four-team Group A, with England losing to India and Australia to the West Indies.

The top two sides advance to the semi-finals.

Flintoff echoed his Australian counterpart's sentiments, saying his side were concentrating on Saturday's game rather than the Ashes beginning at Brisbane next month.

“We are playing a big one-day international against Australia in an important competition tomorrow, so we are focussing on that,” said Flintoff.

“To be honest, I am not looking too far ahead as we have got a game tomorrow and that's where we are concentrating. Once the competition is out of the way we will focus our attention on the Ashes.”

Ponting, the first Australian captain to lose the Ashes in 18 years when his side were beaten in England in 2005, said the intensity would be the same when the two teams meet. “Our rivalry goes back a long long time. There is that little bit of extra.

Certain sides tend to lift themselves when you have those rivalries,” he said. “New Zealand are a pretty good example. They always play very good cricket against Australia. And we probably do the same when we play England. There is that little bit of extra riding on every game that England and Australia play.”

Ponting said Australia could not afford to make mistakes against England, who would be as pumped up as his side were and their opponents' unimpressive run in recent one-dayers had no relevance to Saturday's match.

“Their one-day form probably has not been good, but lot of those things don't matter when you have a contest like this,” he said.

“Both the teams are pumped up. Anything can happen on such days. They have been here for 10 days and are used to the conditions. We arrived last night. We should have learnt a lot from the other night (against the West Indies).”

Ponting said his side had been familiar with the situation when they had to come from behind to stay alive in the competition.

“We have been used to this situation. I don't think it is unusual, especially if you lose a game early on,” said Ponting.

“We were exactly in the same situation in the 1999 World Cup when we had to win every game after the qualifying round. What it tends to do is to bring the best out of us. We tend to play our best cricket when we are under pressure.”

Flintoff said his side were keen to test themsleves against the best side in the world, especially the players who had not played against Australia at the highest level.

“We enjoy testing ourselves against the world's best players. We have got some guys who have not played against them and they are going to go out there and try to impress and perform,” said Flintoff.

“It's going to be a tough game. They (Australia) have got some great players in their ranks and they play their cricket hard. They are a bit of favourites, but it is all about who is going to hold their nerve tomorrow.” —AFP