Embrace the pressure: Allan Border tells Australia

Melbourne, Feb 12: Australia's 1987 World Cup winning captain, Allan Border feels the four-time champions should embrace the pressure of playing the World Cup at home instead of worrying about expectations.

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"Everyone's talking about playing at home - that it's a very difficult situation, the extra pressure and expectation. My advice would be to really go out of your way to embrace the fact you're playing at home in front of your own crowd," Border said in an interview to Cricket Australia.

"Because it will help you in tight situations, when the crowd's in your corner it will make a difference. Don't let it worry you - you know that expectation will be there, really embrace the challenge," he added.

The last time Australia hosted the World Cup was in 1992 but it ended in a disaster as Border's side failed to progress beyond the group stage.

The 59-year-old said his team suffered from poor preparation at that event more than the burden of expectation and so it would be wrong to draw too many parallels between Australia's 1992 and 2015 campaigns.

"I put it down to poor preparation. We'd been playing Test match cricket up until two weeks before the tournament," he said.

"There's no real lack of preparation going into this tournament for the Aussies. This Australian side, they've been up to those challenges over the last couple of years and returned some great performances."

PTI