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It is often said that the captain of the Australian Cricket team is the second most important role in Australia. Admittedly, that is said by cricket fans and sports journalists, but the point remains valid.
Captain of the Australian cricket side carries insufferable scrutiny and the hopes of a sporting nation.
I suspect no Australian captain has worn more scrutiny than Ricky Thomas Ponting. Not Rick as in Rick Darling or Rick McCosker, but a grown man still asking to be called Ricky.
Moving on, when Ponting burst on the scene in 1992, he was hailed as the new David Boon. You f#@*ckin beauty I thought, another dependable can smashing, take one on the chin and stitch me up fighter from the Apple Isle.
How disappointed I was, then, to see Ponting in action for the first time three years later when he made his debut against the Lankans at the WACA. A raw talent with a lot to learn, I thought. Fourteen years later much learning remains although the talent is no longer raw but mature and polished.
No reasonable critic can deny that Ponting is presently the best bat in world cricket. He has been in the top 3 or 4 for the last ten years. His statistics as a willow wielder are Bradmanesque in the modern sense.
So why on earth then does he have to be such a bad sport? And how can he make so many bad tactical decisions during the course of a game, usually relating to bowling changes?
Why does he persist in spitting on his hands every twenty seconds? When does he ever stop chewing gum? Has he ever legitimately been given out?
Does the ball ever carry to an opposing fieldsman who claims a catch? When will he publicly admit that he has a thatch on his head? So many questions, and dare I say so many answers, none that paint Ponting in a favourable light.
Watching the coverage of the Ashes last night, I was moved after Ponting carried on like a petulant prat following an umpiring decision, to text fifty or so of my closest mates with the comment, “I just cannot warm to Ponting.”
Perhaps I simply chose people who I knew would agree with me because the responses came whizzing back and they were unanimous; “Yep, he is a gum chewing bogan, no class, no manners, no brain, great bat though.”
For me the joy that I should derive from watching Ponting succeed at the crease cannot ever rival the feeling of seeing Alan Border fight rear guard after rear guard action or taking seven wickets against the Windies, Tubby Taylor get to 300 on the sub continent, or Steve Waugh’s ton at the SCG in the final session.
Am I too harsh? Maybe I just need to get over it.
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