Natwest Series: Australia Canter Into Final

Australia captain Ricky Ponting found his form in the nick of time today to help his team avoid further embarrassment against Bangladesh and put them in good heart for this weekend's NatWest Series final date with England.

Ponting's first 50 in this triangular tournament set the Aussies on course for their six-wicket win at Canterbury - and doubtless settled his own nerves too after a sequence of only 62 runs in four previous limited-overs international innings this summer.

"It was a pretty good run chase and a pretty good win, we did it fairly comfortably in the end," Ponting told Sky Sports 1. "It was a little bit worrying with the ball, they managed to get 250 after being 75 for five so we had a few worries. "It was a pretty good game though and we go into Saturday's game pretty confident."

That confidence may not extend to Matthew Hayden, who, despite giving young flag-wavers a conspicuously wide berth when Australia ran out to field, dropped a routine slip catch in the Bangladesh innings and a made just solitary run before he was caught behind fencing at Mashrafe Mortaza.

Half-centuries for Bangladesh's Shahriar Nafees (75) and Khaled Mashud (71no) were returned by Michael Clarke's unbeaten 80 and Ponting's 66, which gave Australia enough to ensure the world champions got past a target of 250 for eight - sparing any more blushes following their shock defeat against the same opponents at Cardiff.

Bangladesh's last stand on their mission-improbable tour was an encouraging one for them and perhaps England too as for the second time in this competition they pushed the Australians much harder than they have managed in three attempts against the hosts.

After Hayden's early departure, the Aussies hit two more snags when Adam Gilchrist gave himself out despite appearing to miss an attempted drive which curiously deviated out of the footholds to slip off Tapash Baisya, and then veteran Khaled Mahmud got one to nip away and have Damien Martyn neatly caught at the wicket.

Number three Ponting made a fidgety start and had more than one lbw scrape before gradually finding his touch in a hard-working 95-ball innings which featured just five fours and ended with a disappointing aerial pull to deep midwicket off Mortaza.

Ponting had therefore left some work still to be done. But Clarke, with whom the captain shared an 85-run stand, buckled down for an 80-ball 50 and found an expert 'finisher' in former Kent all-rounder Andrew Symonds who marked a return to his home ground with a match-clinching contribution towards an unbroken alliance of 86.

Bangladeshi opener Nafees had earlier resisted the over-ambitious shot selection favoured by most of his colleagues to provide some much-needed substance in his maiden half-century for a team put in first on a cloudy day.

The left-hander combined with Habibul Bashar and then more significantly Mashud, whose career-best batting helped to ensure a testing total was salvaged from the wreckage of 19 for three after two of the first three in the Bangladeshi order had gone for ducks.

Jason Gillespie made the first incision with a length ball which took the outside edge, with Javed Omar squared up on the back foot. Hayden's earlier drop at slip therefore cost nothing, and Brett Lee put himself in the wickets column anyway when Tushar Imran paid for aiming across the line to be bowled first ball.

Mohammad Ashraful's response to the usual crisis was a four-ball microcosm of his gung-ho summer, replete with a memorable pull for six from a near 90mph Lee delivery barely short of a length and then the demolition of his stumps when he missed a fast and low full toss next up.

Nafees is the only top-order batsman who has convinced for Bangladesh and in only his fourth innings at this level he impressed again as a solid bet for the future. Just the occasional faulty waft outside off-stump betrayed him in a 116-ball stay which brought six boundaries, and he was not tempted into anything foolish even as Habibul was dominating with a cameo 30 which included four fours in one Lee over.

The captain's counter-attack ended when first change Shane Watson found otherwise absent life in the pitch to have a blameless Habibul gloving a catch high and fast behind to the acrobatic Gilchrist.

Aftab Ahmed was much more culpable, and Nafees could be forgiven for wondering what his team-mates were doing when his partner tried to thrash the first ball after drinks out of the ground only to edge Michael Kasprowicz behind with just seven to his name.

Help was at hand, though, in the shape of Mashud whose sensible approach was the antidote required to the headless-chicken batting which had gone before.

Low-risk accumulation replaced seat-of-the-pants stroke-making, and even as the traditional slog overs loomed the sixth-wicket pair knew they did not have the freedom to go for broke.

In the end it was Nafees who fell, caught behind trying to deflect a single off Watson to give Gilchrist his fourth of five victims and end a partnership of 94 which had laid a platform for the addition of 72 runs in the last 10 overs.

Mashud's reward for his mid-innings good sense was a 90-ball half-century, containing just one of the four fours he eventually managed in a Bangladesh total which was enough to give the Australians a good work-out but not a serious scare.