Rival captains played down the hype of next month's Ashes as world champion Australia and England geared up for Saturday's must-win match of the ICC Champions Trophy tournament.

``I don't see this having a lot to do with the Ashes,'' Australian captain Ricky Ponting said Friday.

England and Australia both lost its opening Group A games and another defeat Saturday would throw the loser out of the biennial tournament. England would begin its Ashes defence when the first Test begins at Brisbane on Nov. 23.

``Obviously both sides now want to win two games to keep their hopes alive so it is a big game and we are going to approach it as a must-win game,'' England captain Andrew Flintoff said.

``Once the competition is out of the way we will focus our attention on Ashes,'' he added.

England lost a low-scoring Group A game against India by four wickets in this northwestern Indian city last Sunday while the West Indies _ inspired by Jerome Taylor's hat trick _ handed Australia a surprise 10-run defeat at Mumbai on Wednesday.

Ponting is struggling to find his batting form and has scored just one half-century in the last seven limited-overs games. He also dropped a crucial catch of West Indian batsman Runako Morton, who went on to make 90 Wednesday.

``We made crucial mistakes at bad times, you can't afford to make such mistakes in big games,'' Ponting said. ``Hopefully our decision making will be better in this game.''

Australia has never won the Champions Trophy in its previous four attempts and now it lost the opening game against a team (West Indies) which had to go through the qualifying round to compete in the main draw.

``Lots of teams end up in a situation like this, especially if you lose a game early on,'' Ponting said.

``What it tends to do is bring the best out of our team. We tend to play our best cricket when we are under pump,'' he added.

Flintoff has promoted himself at No. 3 position in the batting lineup to make up for the loss of injured players in the side after Marcus Trescothick and Michael Vaughan were ruled of the tournament. However, Ponting saw it as an advantage to Australia with the new white ball.

``If we can have a crack and get him early with the new ball, then that will leave them a bit thin with the power hitters down the ring,'' Ponting said.

``I guess he has always been a middle order batsman and probably hasn't played enough of the new white ball.''

Flintoff, who is back in international cricket after a long lay-off of four months due to ankle injury, said it would be a big Test for his players on Saturday to compete against the top team in limited-overs game.

``We enjoy testing ourselves against the best players in the world. This is not for myself but for the rest of our players.

``We have got an inexperienced side and we are going to be testing ourselves against the best tomorrow.''

Both captains hoped that their players would not be distracted by Saturday's biggest Hindu festival _ Diwali _ that begins from dusk with noisy firecrackers in the city expecting to make the Sawai Man Singh Stadium hazy for the players.

``I said to the boys this morning to buy themselves gas masks for fielding,'' Ponting said.

``We might need some glasses or something like that to keep our eyes from smoke. I understand that there are going to be a lot of crackers, a bit of haze and smoke around there, hopefully we can see the ball out there.''

Flintoff also wanted to concentrate on the game.

``I've heard it's a festival of lights and that's all I know,'' he said.

``In the context of the competition we are playing a big game tomorrow and we will just concentrate what we will do on the pitch.''