England have retained the Ashes by winning the fourth Test and go ahead of Australia in this series. Congratulations to them first, for the better cricket they have played.
Ricky Ponting, it is reported, is having a chat with selectors even as we type this post.
There is pressure upon him to quit captaincy and some voices have also called for him being dropped from the team. In this regard, Ponting, in the post-match interview stated that he has plenty to offer still both as a leader and player, intimating all concerned that he'd like to continue as it is.
We do not rate him a great leader or an inspirational one, and feel discussion about his captaincy either way is a waste of time for it is obvious that if there is somebody else capable, that person should be the skipper. Anyway, I'd like to see any incumbent (or recently deposed) leader who is convinced he hasn't anything more to offer. But the issue of his presence as a player in the team is what we feel is worth talking about.
He is still the most important batsman for Australia, Mike Hussey notwithstanding, and if this Ashes has gone the way it has, one feels it is because Ponting the Batsman has failed to surface in four Test matches. Form can be easily regained by class players, and Ponting, with his own statement, appears motivated enough to play on. It is said the finger he broke a few days earlier might be troubling him. What might be troubling him more might be the elbow injury he suffered much earlier than that. The finger is a temporary issue and the elbow might be a factor affecting his batting, but if he is playing and in the team, that elbow damage cannot have led to significant disability limiting his batsmanship. He wouldn't have been passed fit to start with. Ricky Ponting is still Australia's best batsman of a rather bare collection of them. he should play.
Ponting himself must dig deep and tap into the reservoir of experience and golden talent that resides in him and come up with a masterful performance in the next Test and at least deny England a series win.
If he is selected to play, and plays well, the current series could well be tied 2-all with a win at Sydney. That win could also easily be Ricky Ponting's 100th Test win as a player. For the record, nobody's done that before in Test cricket. Kallis is a distant second (among currently active players) with 69 wins and Sachin Tendulkar third with 60 wins. No dearth of motivation there at all for Ponting.
Ponting should play on as a pure batsman. Junking him even as a player (unless fitness issues rule) , according to us, is not a wise move.
Like Saeed Ajmal
10 hours ago
12 comments:
I don't think there will ever be another one who can win 100 tests. Not so long ago, playing 100 tests was rare; let alone winning them..
Also his W/L % as skippper is bettered by only Jardine
Had mentioned this in a recent post on Ponting
http://opinionsoncricket-india.blogspot.com/2010/12/opinions-on-ricky-ponting.html
It's a mind boggling number. I never imagined that someone could be part of 100 test wins. Really a great achievement, where he must have played his part in most number of wins. I too wish him 100 test wins as a player. Remarkable feat if and when he gets there.
I am sure he will be allowed to play on even if he is relieved of captaincy. The problem may arise if he is not relieved of the captaincy due to lack of replacements... because captaincy really seems to be troubling him at the moment.
It feels weird to say but it would be nice to see Ricky Ponting leave the scene on a high... he's been one of the greats of our era!
Hmmm..really ? On the other hand you seem to be gunning for RD the player in the Indian team in spite of RD scoring 2 centuries in his last series!
Considering all these, RD relinquishing captaincy looks such a selfless act now instead of hanging like R Ponting.
@Golandaaz,
I too don't believe anybody can beat that. It's an amazing stat for more reasons than one. As you pointed out, players aspire to play 100 Tests in a career and this man has almost 100 wins! What this suggests is most of his runs were scored in wins.
Also, it will suggest he played in teams capable of winning.
Bala, also, Ponting's record documents the best times of Australian cricket, when they had world-beating, all-winning team after another.
Jaju Saheb, the finger injury did kick in and Ponting will not play the fifth Test. One hopes it is only that and he will return. Noises suggest that he might not!
Gana, I am sure you are alluding to my last post on Dravid titled "Let's talk Dravid once again."
Reading it out of the blue does indeed lend the impression which you have formed. But for those who have followed my sequence of articles on Dravid, they might have observed me responding to his moods and form in a basic matrix of admiration.
The way Dravid played that match deserved those questions. That he went on to score hundreds from that innings was enjoyed by me as much as perhaps by you. That article was written before the hundreds...not that the hundreds change things.
Whether it is Sachin, Dravid or Laxman, I have here never lived under any illusion that they are forever and have always encouraged looking for alternatives lest we are not found out like Australia now following retirements.
Dravid's state is not quite the same as what it used to be. His best fans will easily recognize that The Wall isn't quite the same. What troubles him I do not know....is it eyesight or is it that his ability to concentrate is not the same anymore..I don't know. The ongoing tour of South Africa is amplifying the worrying aspects of Dravid. He is playing in ways that he wouldn't have in the past. Why?
Dravid is probably still a far better Test player than most Indian cricketers, but I certainly am looking for alternatives to the existing trinity and more.
SB, there have always been noises about great cricketers when they go through a slump. Same is the case with Ricky Ponting right now.
But I am sure he will return... and maybe even go out on a high. The one thing I have learnt from watching and reading about cricket over all these years is that you never underestimate the resilience of legends.
I may not like Ponting... but I cannot deny that he has been a legend for Australia. Watch out for him in the future!
SB..I read most of the posts here and have read all the posts in the last one year. great blog by the way!
I was referring to the last post where the blogger clearly says that 'Pujara' is the answer to Dravid which I don't think is convincing enough at this point and so author seems to be in a hurry to replace a person who scored 2 hundreds in his last test series but here we are talking about RP deserving his 100th even though he is in rubbish form
Some Australians on twitter were speaking about his elbow troubles since his injury to it. They sounded well informed. I don't know how much of it is true, but if he does have an elbow problem, he could continue to struggle. Also, I feel he is sighting the ball fractionally later than what he was used to...hence his greater tentativeness outside the off stump. He does use glasses otherwise I believe.
I too feel the man will overcome his immediate troubles and bounce back refreshed and motivated by Kallis' golden run and Sachin's steady progress. The question is will CA have patience with him now that captaincy's gone?
ah that. Good friend and fellow blogger, Bala, a remarkably clear-sighted opening batsman in his own playing days, was finally making up his mind to my proposition before Pujara was picked that he was the best man available when Dravid called it a day - his role in the team will mirror Dravid's.
At this early stage, the point's moot whether Pujara will ever be as great as Dravid is/was. Anyway, I doubt if enough Test matches will be played in the coming decades/, but that's a completely different point.
Bala, by the way, is easily a greater fan of Dravid than I. In fact his acknowledgemnt here that Dravid is in the final stages of his career along with two-three other players like Sachin, Lax and Zak, comes with great difficulty and much much thought! Bala is a definite 'Wallist' :)
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