London, May 30: Australia captain Ricky Ponting has dismissed talks of his team being underprepared for the World Twenty20 Championships by missing the IPL and said that his side was instead "in the best shape" following the break before the big event.

Ponting, along with Michael Clarke and Mike Hussey, deliberately skipped IPL preferring rest ahead of a busy summer for them; while players like Andrew Flintoff got injured and have been ruled out of the World Cup. Fitness of Kevin Pietersen is also under the scanner.

"I don’t really know the full extent of their injuries and how much cricket they had actually played leading into the IPL. I was only worried about the players in my side and what our workloads had been like. With the amount of big tournaments we have coming up, it was about making sure we were in the best shape" Ponting was quoted as saying by the Independent.

"There was obviously great incentive with the amount of money that they both (Flintoff, Kevin Pietersen) went for. For us, it was a great opportunity to step away from cricket for a few weeks and make sure we were in the best shape we could be in," he added.

Ponting said that if at all Flintoff plays in the Ashes and if he is not 100 per cent fit, he will not be able to leave any impact. "That’s the big decision the England selectors will have to make before the first Test.

"Flintoff is obviously very important to their set up but as we saw in 2007, if he is not 100 per cent fit then maybe the sort of impact he can make is not there," he said. — PTI