Cricket-Australians plan to target Vaughan

By Staff
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Google Oneindia News

SYDNEY, Jan 7 (Reuters) - Australia are already planning to target Michael Vaughan following his reappointment as England captain.

Despite concerns about his fitness and form, Vaughan was immediately reinstated as England skipper after Andrew Flintoff's brief tenure in charge of the test team ended with their first 5-0 Ashes defeat in 86 years.

Vaughan has not played a limited-overs international for 18 months and had to a pass fitness test just to make the team, raising concerns about how he will cope against a rampant Australia side.

Australia coach John Buchanan said Vaughan's lack of match practice made him an obvious target during the one-day series.

''We'll try to exploit any deficiency, whether it's technical, physical, mental or tactical,'' Buchanan told reporters today.

''If we understand that Michael's struggling physically, then that will be one area we will like to target.

''That will be the same with anybody. If we can detect weaknesses in their armoury, that will be an area we'll try to exploit.'' Australia will be using the upcoming tri-series with England and New Zealand to put the finishing touches on their preparations for this year's World Cup.

Australia are currently favourites to win the World Cup after winning the last two, in 1999 and 2003, as well as last year's Champions Trophy in India.

Buchanan said Australia's Ashes whitewash had provided his team with an extra boost and they were hoping to use their tri-series to reinforce their dominance over two of their rivals.

''Once we get to the West Indies we would have liked to have set a gap between us and two of the teams we'll face over there,'' Buchanan said.

''We'd like to have them in some form of disarray before they got there.'' REUTERS PM VC1440

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