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Let’s get this straight: Ricky Ponting is a great batsman who should be in every Australian team, in all forms of cricket. In my opinion, he is the next best Australian batsman after Don Bradman since 1945.
He is an all-time great batsman who scores his runs quickly and stylishly, in the crucial batting position of number 3. But his captaincy has imploded, with terrible results on and off the field.
He was out-captained by Michael Vaughan in the 2005 losing Ashes series. More recently, he has been out-captained by the South African skippers this season and on Sunday night by Daniel Vettori.
Against New Zealand, Ponting resorted to the unacceptable gamesmanship of time-wasting to try and pull of a victory against the Black Caps. Australia’s bowling session ran an incredible 30 minutes over time as Ponting had endless talk-sessions to his bowlers towards the end of the innings.
Sometimes there were discussions between balls.
The point of the gamemanship was to slow down the New Zealand momentum. This time-wasting, though, is against the spirit of limited over cricket, which is rather like Fast Chess.
Making decisions and taking action under the pressure of time is part of the challenge of ODI cricket. Ponting abused the spirit of the contest by adding an extra 30 minutes to his side’s bowling time.
Then, after the match, he went into bat for Brad Haddin by virtually accusing Vettori of lying when he mentioned the unfortunate fact that Haddin allowed a batsman to be given out bowled when his gloves disturbed the bails.
There are two points to make here.
First, Ponting said that if Haddin claimed he didn’t know that he himself had disturbed the bails then he was going to believe him. But it strains credibility, in my opinion, that Haddin did not know what actually happened.
And if he did know or was in some doubt, why didn’t he call for a replay as catchers have done this summer when they’re not sure whether the grab has been clean or not.
Second, Ponting made his attack on the credibility of Vettori (who instanced Haddin’s guilty reaction to the dismissal) without having seen the incident on television.
In other words, he was prepared to vilify Vettori as a cynical trouble-maker (“he better make sure he’s 100 per cent right … he’s basically claiming Haddin’s a cheat, isn’t he?”) without actually having a look himself to see if Vettori had a case for what he said.
This defence of Haddin, in a sort of “my team-mate can’t be in the wrong” type of attitude, has been typical of Ponting’s leadership, and a blot on it.
We have only to go back to the last year’s Indian series and his unquestioning acceptance of Andrew Symonds’ excuses and justifications to see the pattern. There have been many other instances, too, of unacceptable play by Australians that Ponting has condoned. The beam balls by Brett Lee to Brendan McCullum some years ago, for instance.
The closer Ponting gets towards the end of his career, the more concerned he has become to protect the position of the old-pros in the side.
In the Sun-Herald last week, Ponting is quoted as saying that he wants old heads selected ahead of Phillip Hughes. He has previously been critical of James Hopes’ batting, although the Queenslander is one player who has delivered with the bat and ball for Australia this season in the ODI’s.
Is the fact that Hopes stands in for Symonds, a Ponting favourite, a significant factor in all of this?
In the past I’ve argued that Michael Clark should take over all the captaincy roles from Ponting, thereby releasing the master batsman from the onerous on and off-field duties of the captaincy, duties which did not prevent Ponting from playing three rounds of golf in Perth during the team’s stay there.
I believe now, with Clark himself straining to find form and with his back inclined to play up a bit, that he should take over the Twenty/20 and ODI teams, and that Simon Katich should take over the Test side.
Katich and Hughes, batsmen who are scoring runs virtually every time they go out to bat, one an experienced campaigner and the other a potentially new Ponting, should be in all the Australian teams, in all forms of cricket.
This is important, especially for Hughes, to give him a taste of international play before the Test series in South Africa and England.
Will all this happen?
I don’t think so. Cricket Australia has been negligent about its leadership personnel on and off the field.
Which brings us to the crux of the issue.
Along with a new captain, Australian Cricket needs a new chairman, a new selection panel and a new head coach.
At least the captain has some runs on the board, which is more than can be said about the officials who are failing in their task of rebuilding Australian cricket to its accustomed greatness.