Australia learning on the run - Clark

After two comprehensive wins in three days - including one over old rivals England - the swagger and the supreme confidence is back for the Australians. Their start to the tournament was an absolute shocker, but now they've put the favourites' tag back on themselves. Stuart Clark was full of beans and extremely confident of his team's chances to go all the way in yet another World Cup.

"We're starting to get into a bit of a rhythm," he said on the eve of their game against Pakistan. "We're enjoying it and the guys' skills are slowly getting better."

Australia are now in pretty good shape, but only four days back they were one defeat away from elimination when they took on England at Cape Town. The result was a comprehensive eight-wicket win. "Any win over England is a good win," Clark said, looking back at that result. "There was talk of humiliation in the papers [before the game]. I don't feel humiliated today."

Looking ahead to the Pakistan game, Clark was confident Australia would handle that challenge. "I don't think the Australian cricket team fears anyone. They [Pakistan] are a very good team with very good players, so we're looking forward to the game."

Clark's own bowling has stood up very well to the Twenty20 challenge: in three matches, he has outstanding figures of 5 for 59 from 12 overs. Not surprisingly, he was happy with his form: "It's been a new challenge. I hadn't played much Twenty20 cricket. The wicket's been a bit different to what I was expecting. I've had to adapt. But I'm pretty happy with how I'm going.

"It's more like bowling at the death of a one-day game - slower balls, a few yorkers, there's no magical secret to it. Nathan Bracken and Shaun Tait showed it during the World Cup - it doesn't matter what skill you have but if you do it well you're pretty hard to get away."

Clark also reckoned playing the county season in England helped him get the variations right. "It's one of the reasons I went to England - to work on a few different things. It seems to be going alright at the moment."

About the format itself, Clark admitted there wasn't much in it for the bowlers, but they still had the opportunity to make a difference. "It's a game designed for batsmen, but the bowlers can make a difference if they have two or three really good overs. If you pick up a couple of wickets or don't go for many, you can change the outcome of the game. It's not all just batters, there's room for bowlers - not too much, but just a little bit."

Clark was emphatic that Twenty20 should never take the place of one-day internationals entirely. "I'd hate to see 50-over cricket replaced because of what it's done for the game," he said. "Even if the World Cup [in the Caribbean] went on for a week too long, it's still the pinnacle of one-day cricket and world cricket.

"This tournament is different - it's a bit new, it's fresh, but there's definitely place for it in the cricket world. It's a thriving game and will become more and more popular the more it's played - whether it's international, domestic or some of these new leagues that Cricket Australia is putting together."

The issue of the bowl-out drew a laugh from him, but he was fairly guarded in his opinion of the tie-breaker: "I haven't actually been involved in one. We had a mock one in one of the practice matches, and I'll reserve my judgment till I actually have to go into one."