February 12, 2008	Tuesday	Safar 04 ,1429

CANBERRA, Feb 11: Sri Lanka captain Mahela Jayawardene said here on Monday that India’s upset tri-series win over Australia showed the world’s best team was becoming increasingly vulnerable.

Just days after thrashing Sri Lanka by 128 runs in Sydney, Australia crashed back to earth with a five-wicket loss to India in their one-day match in Melbourne on Sunday.

“They’re not dominating world cricket at the moment ... they’re playing some good cricket, but on and off,” Jayawardene said ahead of Tuesday’s match with India here.

“They’re being pushed to the limit which is a good thing. I think the rest of the world is catching up with them, especially in one-day cricket.”

The defeat was only Australia’s second home loss in 18 One-day Internationals against India and follows their hard-fought 2-1 Test series win.

Jayawardene said while Australia remained the team to beat, they were finding it hard to maintain their best form after the retirements of Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath, Justin Langer and Damien Martyn.

He said Sri Lanka, who have been in indifferent one-day form since reaching last year’s World Cup final, had been boosted by their impressive tour win here against the Prime Minister’s XI.

“If we win tomorrow everyone has one win each,” stated Jayawardene. “So we just need to make sure we give it our best shot tomorrow and make this tournament much more interesting than what it is.”

Meanwhile, fast bowler Stuart Clark said Australia were desperate to show they were still the world’s best after taunts from tri-series rivals India and Sri Lanka.

“I keep reading that certain members of their (India’s) team say we are scared and things like that and I find that pretty much laughable,” said Clark. “They can think whatever they want and they’ve made some bold statements.

“India are playing good cricket, but the guys are keen to show everyone that we are still the best team in the world.”

Clark insisted Australia were simply down on form for Sunday’s surprise five-wicket defeat.

“On any day, if we are not on our game, any team can beat us and if we don’t play cricket to our level then we can get beaten,” he stated.

Clark, who said he was looking to become more unpredictable with his bowling to nail down a spot in the one-day side, also backed captain Ricky Ponting to emerge from his current form slump.

The usually prolific Ponting has scored just 18 runs at 6.00 in the tri-series and also struggled for form for most of the narrow 2-1 Test series win against India.—AFP