Our strategy worked well on the first day: Ponting

Bangalore, Oct 9 (UNI) Australian Captain Ricky Ponting today said his team's strategy drawn before the match worked and he was satisfied with the outcome of the first day's play on a good but slow wicket here.

Speaking to the mediapersons after the opening day's play of the first Test match that began at M Chinnaswamy stadium here, Ponting who scored his 36th century to take Australia to safety said, ''I am very happy with the team's performance, that too after loosing first wicket with no score on the board. It was a pretty good day for us.'' Replying to a question he said, that since the pitch was slow and Indian fielding was good getting boundaries became difficult.

''But once we settled down we could overcome the sluggish start and began scoring more freely. Initially since fielders stopped most of our shots scoring boundaries was made difficult. But latter we judged the fielding positions well and succeeded in scoring a little faster,'' he said.

About Hyden's quick dismissal, he said he was a good player and one cannot judge a player's quality in a single innings.

''Hayden is working hard and it only one slip and it was beyond his control,'' he felt.

When asked about getting out for Harbhajan Singh, the Australian skipper said, ''I have been working hard to face Harbhajan and managed to play him with confidence for most part of my innings today.'' The Aussie skipper, touted as the off spinner's 'bunny' got out in his bowling for the ninth time in test matches today.

Ponting was all praise for Indian pace bowler Ishant Sharma saying that he was shaping to be a very good bowler and initially batsmen were forced to defend his inswingers as they were very difficult to handle.

To another question, he said, ''I wanted to make a point and succeeded in playing defensive game as well as keep the score ticking. I am very much satisfied with team's performance on the day one. We did pretty good job and not much errors were committed.'' UNI MSP-RS RKM PM1819