Hope for Hauritz and Tait

Australian captain Michael Clarke is confident that both Nathan Hauritz and Shaun Tait will be able to take their places in the World Cup.

Hauritz and Tait were injured during Australia’s 46-run victory over England in the second one-day international at Bellerive Oval on Friday, which gave Clarke’s men a 2-0 lead in the seven-match series.

Off-spinner Hauritz suffered a dislocated shoulder while diving in the outfield, while paceman Tait could take no further part after limping off with what appeared to be a groin strain five balls into his sixth over.

With Mike Hussey out with a hamstring injury and Ricky Ponting unavailable with the broken finger, Clarke was optimistic the pair would recover in time for Australia’s World Cup defence.

“We’re confident that they’ll both be all right for the World Cup,” Clarke said. “It is a setback though because you want to keep playing as much cricket as you can and get as much form under your belt as possible.”

“Anytime anyone gets injured it’s a loss. They are disappointed personally, especially someone like ‘Haury’ who has had to go back to first-class cricket where he’s been playing really well.”

“For this to happen now, I feel for him. Hopefully he’ll be right for the World Cup – he’ll play a big part in that.”

Clarke also heaped praise on batsman Shaun Marsh, whose 110 batting at No.6 won the game for the Australians after they were teetering at 142-8.

“It shows we’ve got a lot of talent,” Clarke said. “What’s most pleasing for me is when you see someone come in like Shaun and get hold of his opportunity. That continues to show the depth in first-class cricket in Australia.”

“He’s come into this game in good form, scoring runs for Western Australia and it’s as good an innings as I’ve seen, under pressure and losing wickets around him. He really stood up today.”

England skipper Andrew Strauss said he was disappointed to be 2-0 down in the series, and lamented the decision to go into Friday’s match without an extra pace bowler.

“It was a very disappointing display, simply not good enough,” Strauss said.

“We allowed them to get too many having had them 142-8, then batted poorly. We have got a lot of hard work to do.”

“I was a seamer short today if I’m honest. That meant I had to bowl the spinners at the death. No disrespect to the spinners out there, but this was a pitch on which it was difficult to play seam bowling.”

“The World Cup is in the back of our mind, yes, there’s no doubt about it. But we’ve still got to pick the right side for the occasion in this series and we didn’t do that today, I have to say.”

“Now we’ve got to look at what went wrong and make sure it doesn’t happen again, starting with Sunday’s match in Sydney.”