Bowlers have to grin and bear it

Ryan Harris gives his verdict on Australia's form and the plight of the bowler in ODIs

Before tomorrow's crucial World Cup match between Australia and Sri Lanka it's worth taking a quick look back at the two games our boys have played in the past week and the contrasting way they panned out.

From the perspective of a bowler, I really enjoyed pretty much every aspect of last Saturday's game in Auckland except for the final result.It was great to see the ball dominate the bat especially on a postage-stamp sized ground that was supposed to load it heavily in the batsmen's favour, but in the final analysis although the ball swung a bit I don't think either team will be too impressed with the way they batted.

And even though it was the swing bowlers who shared most of the wickets, to my mind it was Daniel Vettori who changed the course of that game with the way he came on when our batters were on the charge and really showed his class.

I know Michael Clarke and some of the other Australian guys have admitted they could have batted better, and while I haven't heard any details of the way the game was assessed I reckon it would be along the lines of 'yep, we didn't bat too well but our bowling was really good and it was just one of those days'. The fact that they almost snuck a win means there were enough positives to focus on as they prepared for Afghanistan, and one of those is certainly the form that Mitchell Starc is showing.

His pace and his control are brilliant to watch, and the way that he's landing those swinging yorkers at pace means I think he'll go through a lot of other teams the way he did at the end of New Zealand's innings.

Mitch Johnson's form was also a bit of a talking point from that game and he would agree he didn't have his best day, but that's just the way the one-day game can go and I thought Brendon McCullum played him really well.

For our guys to make the long trip to Perth and then go out and post the highest-ever World Cup score against Afghanistan on their way to achieving the largest World Cup win showed how well our batters and our pace attack are going.

People will say it was a game we were always going to win, but the manner they went about it against an opposition that was far from a pushover gives us a good idea of where we're at.I thought Afghanistan's bowlers did quite a good job, landed some good yorkers and were only let down by the number of boundary-balls they delivered in between..

The unfortunate injury to Pat Cummins meant Josh Hazlewood got another chance and bowled well, which has led many to question precisely what our best ODI pace attack should be and which of that pair gets the nod behind the Mitches.As a card-carrying member of the fast bowlers' cartel, I'm saying right now I'm sitting on the fence.

Hopefully Pat is fit and firing again as we head into the final part of the group phase, but they've both bowled really well over the summer and deserve their spot.

They've both got different strengths and what each of them brings complements the attack really well, so I wish all four quicks could play but with the quality of our all-rounders we've got that great balance.

So for me, it's not about who's going to play, it's about how good they're all going and the depth that we've got available to us.. I think Pat is more of a bash-the-deck type of bowler whereas Josh maybe swing it a bit more.