Well what a day it was today. I went to Nottingham to meet the Aussie team at a training session they were holding near Trent Bridge. I got there about 11.00 shortly after the session started on a beautiful day which must have reminded the Aussies of back home.

29th May 2009

Well what a day it was today. I went to Nottingham to meet the Aussie team at a training session they were holding near Trent Bridge. I got there about 11.00 shortly after the session started on a beautiful day which must have reminded the Aussies of back home.

It was a light session, not surprising that they had only got off the plane recently mainly concentrating on fielding drills and some fitness work. The players seemed to be in good spirits and were in jovial mood.

I chatted briefly to Michael Clarke who seems like a very nice guy. He said he was looking forward to the T20 and its anyone's guess as to who can lift the trophy.

Also chatted briefly to Mitchell Johnson and Brett Lee. Lee didnt give too much away about his fitness though.

Then it was over to Trent Bridge for the live press conference with Ricky Ponting which was aired on Sky Sports News today at 1.15. The conference lasted about 25 minutes in total with quite a few questions about the Ashes thrown at Ponting. He's a pro when it comes to press conferences, almost robotic with his answers although he did have a few digs at the England team namely FF and KP for coming back injured from the IPL. He also couldnt remember Swann's name and made a funny comment about how poor Ashley Giles was.

I asked him who he thought were the Aussie main challengers at the T20 and he gave the politically correct answer that there are quite a few teams who are dangerous and he was concentrating on the Aussies playing good cricket. The British press were certainly focussing more on the Ashes series rather than the Twenty/20 World Cup, with overall more questions asked about the Ashes.

Pictures can be found at this link :-

http://www.pakpassion.net/ppforum/showthread.php?t=73605

The full audio of the press conference by Ricky Ponting and some video coverage of today can be found here :-

http://www.pakpassion.net/ppforum/showthread.php?t=73692