Ponting awakens to a new dawn as a beaten man

COLOMBO, Mar 20 (Reuters): Ricky Ponting's men would have woken up on Sunday nursing their bruised egos, scratching their heads and wondering what went wrong - barring the skipper himself none of them knew what it felt like to lose a World Cup match. That reality would have hit them, and hit them hard, after they were outwitted, outclassed and outplayed by Pakistan on Saturday in a Group A showdown. After such a huge blow, Ponting faces perhaps the most testing days of his captaincy as he tries to lift the morale of his team going into next week's knockout phase. "We are good enough to get out of this. We have to learn from this result," Ponting said moments after the loss. All-rounder Steve Smith was a nine-year-old school boy the last time the Australians lost a match in the showpiece event - and that was 12 years ago after which the world champions stitched together a 34-match unbeaten streak. They will live to fight another day since Saturday's defeat was in a round-robin match which did not have much riding on it and they had already qualified for the quarter- finals. Ponting wanted to emphasise this point rather than dwell on his first Cup defeat as captain.