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Former Australian captain Ian Chappell believes Ricky Ponting is a better captain than Steve Waugh.
Ponting recently equalled Waugh’s record of leading his team to 16 consecutive Test wins, but Chappell has no doubts who he prefers as captain.
“Ponting holds the edge over Waugh, judged on those rare occasions in the past decade when the opposition has been able to dictate terms to Australia,” Chappell writes in his column in The Bulletin magazine this week.
“Whereas Waugh ran out of attacking ideas quickly in those situations, Ponting works feverishly to dismiss opponents rather than waiting for them to make a mistake,” he says.
Chappell, who captained Australia in 30 Tests between 1971 and 1975 and is regarded as one of the game’s greatest ever leaders, says Waugh’s streak ended because he showed a lack of initiative when India recovered from the follow-on to win in Kolkata in 2001.
“Despite having both Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath at his disposal, Waugh opted to play a waiting game as VVS Laxman and Rahul Dravid piled on … a 376-run partnership.
“It was a fatal mistake.”
Chappell says in similar situations Ponting tries to provoke the opposition into making errors.
“Ponting has improved his captaincy after making some mistakes in the losing 2005 Ashes series, while Waugh’s style never changed much.”
“Ponting … has continued to grow and learn as a captain and while he only equalled Waugh’s victory record, he has surpassed him as a captain.”
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