Why Ponting should stay and we should let him
Columnist By Will McCloy, 22 Feb 2012 Will McCloy is a Roar Expert
- Tagged:
- Australian Cricket, Australian One Day cricket, Cricket, Cricket Australia, James Sutherland, Ricky Ponting, Test cricket
Ricky Ponting's future unclear. AAP Picture
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Ricky Ponting apologised to the media yesterday. Yep, you read it right. After a relationship with the press that has varied over the years from glowing reverence to outright damnation, Punter apologised to the assembled throng at the SCG.
“I’m sorry,” the 375 game one-day international veteran said. “I think I might have let a lot of you people down.”
He knew it, and as I sat among the throng, I knew it too. The vast majority in that room wanted to hear one word. Retirement, simply for the headlines it creates.
Ponting didn’t utter the phrase, and nor should he. Despite the loud and prolonged calls for his head, Ponting did just as he should have done at this press conference – he cleared a few things up.
“No, I’m not retiring. Why would I? I love the game. No, I don’t expect to play one day games for Australia again. Yes, I will bat on in Tests. Yes, I think I can still dominate bowling attacks.”
“I still believe I’ve got a lot to offer any team I’m a part of,” he said. “I still have what it takes to be a dominant player.”
That once great champions fade in their talents is a natural part of elite sport. The problem is not with their decline but with our reaction to it.
The fact is that based on recent form, Ponting is one of the best batsmen we’ve got. He had a lean run, and he can’t hit that hook shot like he used to, but he dominated against India, averaging 108 and finishing with a double ton.
Sure, India was hopeless. But it’s not India Ponting is batting against these days. It’s his detractors, and the other Aussie batsmen they compare him to.
I like the guts the selectors showed in dropping Ponting from the limited overs side. I like that he didn’t know about it until it happened. That’s the power they wield, and the way they should wield it. Nobody should be safe.
If you have a bad run, you get the phone call. But, just because you are on the wrong side of 35, why should you then announce your retirement? Get in there, work hard and try to make your way back. Why not?
It’s not just retirement from the one day side that was sought. Many have suggested that he should retire from all forms of the game. After his recent efforts, that is a ridiculous notion.
Cricket Australia CEO James Sutherland said Ponting would be a walk up start in the Caribbean, and so he should be. If he does well there, he should remain in the side until his form warrants a demotion.
It was mooted today, and has been before, that Ponting’s natural instincts as a fighter have seen him hang around, rather that play a farewell game while bowing out gracefully like so many in recent times.
Ponting was never going to do that, and we should applaud him for it. It’s very easy to stand on the boundary rope and call for someone to stand aside.
But Ponting is doing what he loves – winning. He was asked what the ‘carrot’ was – that big achievement he was chasing. “None,” he said. ‘It’s just my love for the game.”
The fact that he is strong enough to resist the weight of public opinion based on the ruminations of the press only speaks of the strength of his personality.
He will play on, and when he is no longer in the top six batsmen in the country, he will be dropped. That’s not a failure to step aside on Punter’s part – that’s how a professional career should be.
Until then, we should support him.
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February 22nd 2012 @ 6:41am
Johnno said | February 22nd 2012 @ 6:41am | Report comment
Who is a better batsmen Ponting or Greg chapel i still don’t know, or Border, Alan border made so many hard runs vs great west indian teams under extreme pressure, by not always playing in good aussie teams in the 1980′s, and all the fall out of the rebel tours, and all those problems.
Kim hughes made some hard runs too, but he probably not in those guys level, but certainly had the talent too. And steve waugh of course. I just think greg chapell and Alan border have to come into reckoning to challenge Ponting as the best since Bradman. Such a tough call but id probably say Greg Chappell is the best since Bradman. One has to have a soft spot too for the ultra classy batsman and technique so effortless Mark waugh, and David Boon.
Damien Martyn certianly had the talent when he came on the scene many said Damie Martyn was the most talented batsmen since Bradman. he didn’t read those lofty heights but biy he was a talant , rick pointing was a massive Damien Martyn fan, loved having him in the team. He did get wised cricketer of the year 1 year did Martyo. A greta technique and eye, he honed down his style like steve wuagh did. He went form brash to safe, but still had all the shots made some big runs too. but so did Brad Hodge who was so good, still scratch my head how Brad Hodge did not play more tests for Australia what a talent , but same with matt elliot and began some of Austrlaia’s the unluckiest cricketers.
And also a soft spot for Hayden and Gilchrist of course too. And maybe one day Dave Warner might eclipse them all except Bradman,. He can sure hit a cricket ball David warner as could Gilly of course and Andrew Symonds and Micheal slater and simon o’donnell. But dave warner might be the best after Bradman one day you never know.
Punter though a great player who will I think stay on and get picked for the west indies tour coming up. Not 100% sure on the ashes though in 2013.
February 22nd 2012 @ 7:57am
Jason said | February 22nd 2012 @ 7:57am | Report comment
Thanks for those random musings Johnno.
February 22nd 2012 @ 10:55am
Bayman said | February 22nd 2012 @ 10:55am | Report comment
Johno,
I’ve been away in Adelaide for some time and I’ve missed you. Good to see you are still leaving some of the letters out of words, and names, adding letters that were never there in the first place and not bothering with capital letters for every single name.
Like you I reckon Ponting is a certainty for the Windies Test tour. Like you I’ve got my doubts about him making the Ashes in 2013. One thing I am a bit more certain about: David Warner will never be the “second best” after Bradman as long as his bum points to the ground. At the moment he’s not even the second best after Marcus North (with all due respect to Marcus – and Warner) so he’s got a fair way to travel before reaching Bradman’s lofty heights.
To be fair though mate, that’s just my opinion.
P.S. I left the second “n” out of Johnno as a tribute to you – always assuming, of course, that you didn’t put it in by accident!
February 22nd 2012 @ 6:11pm
Johnno said | February 22nd 2012 @ 6:11pm | Report comment
Bayman i find you funny as always mutually and have missed you too, and very funny and like how you left the n out of Johnno mate. But on David Warner, he does have the potential to be the next Bradman but has along way to go, he has to tighten up his technique. But he sure has a good eye and great and eye co ordination, and is a real fighter type player a bit like punter a little terrier. I can’t see Ponting being dropped no one else has stepped up except Dave hussy and Peter forest.
February 22nd 2012 @ 8:35am
jamesb said | February 22nd 2012 @ 8:35am | Report comment
Why don’t the media concentrate on possible replacements for Ponting?
Whether he gets dropped or he retires, at the end of the day, we need to consider who are our next batting options.
Is there someone better than Ponting coming through, a potential superstar batsman: No
Is there anyone putting their hand up at Shiled cricket? No.
Playing 5 or 6 good games at Shield is not enough. It needs to be at least 2 years scoring 1800 to 2000 runs at an average 45 to 50 plus.
Whtas interesting is people look at how Ponting has averaged in the thirties in the last few years, yet Ponting could be replaced by someone like Forrest who averages 36!
Lets give our younger batsman more time to stake their claim.
February 22nd 2012 @ 10:41am
Disco said | February 22nd 2012 @ 10:41am | Report comment
Khawaja has performed consistently in Shield. Two average first-class matches don’t mean he’s suddenly not good enough.
February 22nd 2012 @ 10:52am
Matt F said | February 22nd 2012 @ 10:52am | Report comment
No it doesn’t, but when you get dropped from the test team (yes it was probably a little premature but it still happened) you need to do better then he currently is to win the spot back, especially when the team is winning and the batsman are scoring runs (admittedly against a very poor Indian team.) His form right now doesn’t warrant a recall, though I still believe that he will be a mainstay of the Test team in the future.
February 22nd 2012 @ 1:05pm
Red Kev said | February 22nd 2012 @ 1:05pm | Report comment
No one will score 1000 run shield seasons anymore mate.
Good young batsmen in Australia do not get the chance to post those sort of numbers due to the sheer volume of internationals and the instability in the national team. The best two performed batsmen recently are Shaun Marsh (avg 59.4 over two seasons 2009/10 and 2010/11) and Usman Khawaja (avg 62.4 over two seasons 2009/10 and 2010/11). However at the end of this season Khawaja will have played only 19 of the possible 30 Shield matches over 3 years; Marsh will have played only 13 of the possible 30 for WA in those 3 years. These guys get dragged off on international tours either for Australia A or as reserve batsmen for Australia. They never get the chance to play 11 matches and score 1500 runs in a season the way Katich did. Look at Peter Forrest, 581 runs from 6 matches and a genuine chance to post a 1000 run season but he won’t play anymore of the Shield games because he’s been snapped up.
February 22nd 2012 @ 1:17pm
Jason said | February 22nd 2012 @ 1:17pm | Report comment
Liam Davis will get pretty close this season.
February 22nd 2012 @ 1:27pm
Red Kev said | February 22nd 2012 @ 1:27pm | Report comment
Yeah and it took a freak of an innings to get him close – only the 14th (I think that is right but I might be wrong, can’t remember off the top of my head, I read it in one of the news stories) triple-hundred in more than 100 years of Shield Cricket.
February 22nd 2012 @ 1:46pm
Matt F said | February 22nd 2012 @ 1:46pm | Report comment
Still, that freak innings probably makes up for him not playing in 2 of WA’s shield matches this season. Had he have played the full amount of games he would probably be on similar numbers anyway
February 22nd 2012 @ 2:19pm
Red Kev said | February 22nd 2012 @ 2:19pm | Report comment
True enough (especially considering the two matches he missed were NSW and SA).
Three of his four single figure dismissals have come against Qld which is one of the stonger bowling attacks. His last two matches are against Vic (who will probably still have Siddle) and WA (another strong bowling attack) so if he makes the 1000 runs he will certainly have earned it.
But the point (way back when) was that it will no longer be a case of “Oh 1000 runs, that’s a breakout season, let’s see if he has any consistency and can back it up”, the situation is now “Holy crap he’s on track for 1000 runs, let’s get him on the plane to the West Indies for his development”.
February 22nd 2012 @ 10:28pm
Jason said | February 22nd 2012 @ 10:28pm | Report comment
Might be the 14th player to get a SS triple but I would be amazed if it was the 14th time. Bradman and Ponsford had 6 triples between them and I can reel off Jones, Hookes, Marsh, Katich, Hill, Simpson, Love and Lehmann (and now Davis) as others who have done it.
February 22nd 2012 @ 1:25pm
Matt F said | February 22nd 2012 @ 1:25pm | Report comment
Liam Davis is on track to do it this season despite missing 2 games. Quiney and Voges (who’s also missed one game) are both outside chances to do it as well. It will become increasingly rare but it’s not impossible. It will make looking at averages over a 2-3+ year period increasingly important. Of course we could always include the A tours when considering them. It worked for Warner
February 22nd 2012 @ 8:49am
Chris said | February 22nd 2012 @ 8:49am | Report comment
“Whtas interesting is people look at how Ponting has averaged in the thirties in the last few years, yet Ponting could be replaced by someone like Forrest who averages 36!”
I don’t have a problem with that – in that Ponting’s average is only going to go down, but Forrest’s (or someone else) has a reasonable chance of going up.
The issue now is whether keeping someone like Ponting in the team is helping the development of the Australian Test team. One could look at the transition of Healy to Gilchrist and (with the benefit of hindsight), argue that this happened a couple of years too late. Do we want to make the same mistake again?
February 22nd 2012 @ 9:18am
Matt F said | February 22nd 2012 @ 9:18am | Report comment
The key difference there is that Gilchrist made it impossible for selectors to keep leaving him out through his performances over a number of seasons. Is there a player doing the same right now? I don’t think so. Most of the players who are making runs this season have only really started to make them this season. Ideally a player would make consistent runs (say averaging 45-50+ over 2-3 seasons) before being selected. The only player who’s really done this of late is Khawaja and he didn’t take his chance (though was probably dropped a little to soon) and is now struggling in the Shield.
February 22nd 2012 @ 12:31pm
B.A Sports said | February 22nd 2012 @ 12:31pm | Report comment
“I don’t have a problem with that – in that Ponting’s average is only going to go down, but Forrest’s (or someone else) has a reasonable chance of going up.”
Why would Forrest (or someone else) who is averaging 36 have a reaonsable chance of there average going up? Infact I would say it is the opposite. Most guys playing Shield cricket will only go into decline, not improve.
There are plenty of batsman who get to the first class level in their mid 20′s peak and fizzle out. As an example that comes to mind locally. Greg Mail was an opening bat for NSW. He came into the side, went pretty well, when he was about 25 he had a season where he scored about 800 runs, but then faded gradually after that. Several years later he broke some crazy long record at his grade club for runs in a season, but he reached his peak in his 20′s and his peak was at State level. There would be dozens of players like that in just the last five years.
So while Forrest as an example, may (or may not) kick on, players averaging mid30′s are not any more likely to kick on than Ponting and Ponting brings with him additional factors that experience and being without doubt one of the top 5 batsman of the last 20 years, can only bring.
By the way, Really good story Will.
February 22nd 2012 @ 12:56pm
Australian Rules said | February 22nd 2012 @ 12:56pm | Report comment
I agree B.A.
Why do people look at a domestic Shield average in the mid-30s and expect that batsman to suddenly flourish in International Test Match cricket?
If there were genuine future stars who were banging down the door, Ponting would probably have been dropped ages ago. The cold reality…is perhaps that there’s not a bevy of young stars. Marsh, Khawaja, Hughes et al…they are good batsmen but they’ve hardly set the world on fire at Shield or Test level.
I believe this is a sickness…this panicked urge to discard genuine greats like Ponting for kids that might, one day, be good…but probably not as good as Ponting (top 3 greatest Test and ODI scorer in the history of the game).
February 22nd 2012 @ 1:10pm
Red Kev said | February 22nd 2012 @ 1:10pm | Report comment
Let me ask you this instead:
Why do people look at players with FC averages of 45-50 and then assume the player is crap when they don’t score a century in their first 6 test matches? Plenty of players take longer to blossom than that. Chappell (Ian), Langer, Hayden, Lehmann, Martyn, Boon and Waugh (Steve) all had fewer runs and the same number of centuries as Khawaja at the same stage of their Australian test careers.
February 22nd 2012 @ 1:30pm
Matt F said | February 22nd 2012 @ 1:30pm | Report comment
Who’s come out and said that Khawaja is crap? Certainly not any selector or cricket “expert” that I’ve seen. Anyone who thinks that is very misguided.
Most of the players you’ve mentioned there were all dropped at some stage in their careers but forced their way back. Whether Khawaja was rightfully or wrongly dropped after Hobart (I believe it was premature but it happened regardless,) players need to force their way back in through runs (or wickets for bowlers obviously.) Right now Khawaja’s not doing that, at least not in the Shield.
February 22nd 2012 @ 2:27pm
Disco said | February 22nd 2012 @ 2:27pm | Report comment
One certainly gets the impression that Uncle Arthur’s not a Khawaja fan.
That he was dropped prematurely was a major gaffe on the part of the selectors in my view.
February 22nd 2012 @ 2:54pm
Matt F said | February 22nd 2012 @ 2:54pm | Report comment
I’m a big Khawaja fan and I disagreed with Khawaja’s axing at the time. It was made to look even worse because the man he was dropped for also failed and failed miserably. However since being dropped Khawaja hasn’t done much at all to warrant a recall.
February 22nd 2012 @ 8:59am
jamesb said | February 22nd 2012 @ 8:59am | Report comment
“One could look at the transition of Healy to Gilchrist’
Gee Chris, it would be nice if Australia had a similar transition of Ponting to ….well not Gilchrist, but you get my drift.
Like I said before, Ponting should be judged on a series by series basis, which means he HAS to score runs. Pontings not harming the development of Australian cricket, if anything our youngsters are not taking full advantage of their opportunites whether its at test or first class level.
Players like Khawaja, Lynn, Burns, S.Marsh and Hughes spring to mind
February 22nd 2012 @ 9:22am
Col said | February 22nd 2012 @ 9:22am | Report comment
“He will play on, and when he is no longer in the top six batsmen in the country, he will be dropped. That’s not a failure to step aside on Punter’s part – that’s how a professional career should be.”
Spot on Will.
February 22nd 2012 @ 11:32am
AdamLudeke said | February 22nd 2012 @ 11:32am | Report comment
Phil Hughes, Usman Khawaja and Shaun Marsh will be KICKING THEMSELVES!
Usman probably the unluckiest of the three, but he still had ample opportunities to score runs and didn’t, bar that one innings in SAf.
All three are talented and have dominated various times in recent years, across domestic, ODIs and Tests, but you get the feeling that they’re well and truly back with the rest of the chasing pack now. I wouldn’t be surprised to see George Bailey in the WI tour, the selectors seem to rate him.
February 22nd 2012 @ 11:37am
Matt F said | February 22nd 2012 @ 11:37am | Report comment
Given the comments made about Forrest when he called up to the ODI side, and his performances so far, I think he’s the most likely candidate for the backup batsman spot.
February 22nd 2012 @ 12:30pm
Jason said | February 22nd 2012 @ 12:30pm | Report comment
I think you might be right on this. Of course, he probably won’t play any first class cricket between now and when the WI squad is announced but that seems to be the way of things now.
February 22nd 2012 @ 2:31pm
Disco said | February 22nd 2012 @ 2:31pm | Report comment
And how would you rate Forrest as compared to Khawaja? Their Shield and limited overs records in the top order suggest the latter is a far superior player and HE should be the one blooded as a player of rare potential.
February 22nd 2012 @ 2:50pm
Matt F said | February 22nd 2012 @ 2:50pm | Report comment
I think that Khawaja is the better player, however khawaja was given a chance and didn’t impress. Sure he may have been dropped a little too early, but even so he hasn’t exactly piled on the first class runs since has he? Forrest is currently in the ODI team and has made two 50′s in 3 innings. In other words he’s taking his chance which is something that Khawaja failed to do. If we’re talking about the ODI team then I’d be picking players like Cooper and Ferguson ahead of both of them anyway.
February 22nd 2012 @ 3:37pm
Luke said | February 22nd 2012 @ 3:37pm | Report comment
People have to lower their expectation of state Cricketers these days imo.
Years ago if you weren’t averaging over 50 with 1000 Shield runs you wouldn’t even get a look in. But now with the increased workload on State Cricketers the bar has to be set a little lower. A player very rarely plays all 10 Shield games in a season these days which puts him at a dissadvantage straight away, plus throw in the Ryobi Cup and endless amount of Big Bash Cricket it is hard to just knuckle down and focus on one format.
Also the pitches in Domestic Cricket have been “livened up” the last few years (which imo is a good thing because it teaches guys to play in tough conditions) which makes it a little more difficult for batsmen as well.
I also think people writing these guys off that average 35 should really think about the big picture. Sometimes the reason these guys average so poorly is because they have been thrown into State Cricket before they are ready.
Peter Forrest is a case in point, he has played several seasons with NSW and been in and out of the team, and has admitted himself that he probably wasn’t ready for State Cricket at the time. Now he has moved to Queensland and looks a more rounded complete player than he was back then. Should his average of 35 hold him back even though he has quite clearly improved?
February 22nd 2012 @ 3:47pm
Matt F said | February 22nd 2012 @ 3:47pm | Report comment
Has he genuinely improved or is he just going through a “hot-streak?” It does seem a bit premature to judge a player on 6 good Shield matches. I agree that we shouldn’t judge them on their career average as a players season 8 years ago isn’t that relevant to now, but I also don’t think that 1/2 a season is enough either. Ideally you’d look at their last 2-3 seasons and go from there.
February 22nd 2012 @ 4:10pm
Rhys said | February 22nd 2012 @ 4:10pm | Report comment
If Ponting keeps posting good scores there’s no reason to drop him. There is a possible problem on the horizon though. By the end of the 13/14 season, when we host the second Ashes series in six months, Ponting will be 39, with Hussey only a few months behind. I’d bet good money that both players would see that as the ideal time to retire on their terms. The Australian middle order is then left with a gaping hole to fill. Of course this is only one permutation to consider, but the Test team has been hit hard before by multiple retirements.