Tag Archives: ricky ponting

Ricky Ponting Should Have Quit While He Was Ahead

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Going by Australia’s performances in this World Cup, they didn’t look like the marauding gang of 2003 and 2007, nor like the exciting die-harders of 1999. If they had gone to win this World Cup, it would have been injustice. Well, consider justice served. The World Cup will finally have a new name after a decade of Australian dominance. Which brings me to a hypothetical about Ricky Ponting.

What if Ponting had retired after the 2007 World Cup? Today, he would be remembered thus:

  • Lead Australia to two impeccable World Cup victories and was part of another winning team (1999) and a losing finalist (1996)
  • Lost only 3 Tests: a dead rubber against India in Mumbai and two in the close 2005 Ashes series (both tight losses – 2 runs and 3 wickets).
  • Captain of Australia when they destroyed almost every opponent in Tests, including South Africa (2-0 and 3-0 home and away). Was part of the only Australian team to win in India in recent times (only captained the last Test)
  • Lots and lots of runs in both forms of the game, with some great knocks like the huge century in the 2003 final.
  • Batting statistics compared very favorably with Tendulkar and, at one point, it was plausible that Ponting could have overtaken him in total runs and centuries.

Now, as he goes off into the sunset, here is his record

  • Lost the Ashes three times (twice away, once at home), including the only time ever when a team has lost three matches by an innings.
  • Lost in India twice.
  • Lost at home to South Africa.
  • Gave away a match to Pakistan.
  • Never did anything much with the Twenty20 World Cup.
  • Saw Tendulkar pull away in the Test records quickly and beyond reach, while his own record slumped to “great, but mortal” status.

Full disclosure: I don’t really like Ponting that much – in fact, I don’t like him at all. So this is all good. Ponting owed a lot of his success to having a team of greats (Warne, McGrath, Gilchrist), and if he had quit earlier, he would have had an undeserved legacy. As it happened, he was exposed after the retirements of the senior players. Now, he will be remembered, but not too fondly.

I suspect that Australia will have to go through at least a couple of captains before they start climbing back to the top. There is a sense that Australia’s code has been cracked and i don’t think Michael Clarke can turn that around. None of the other existing players look like captaincy material at this point, so we will have to wait a while.

Will Ponting Overtake Tendulkar?

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Teams fight against each other to win Test and ODI series, but there are other competitions going on, especially in the individual record space. One of these is who will remain on the Mount Everest of cricket, i.e., who will score the most runs and most 100s. Currently, Tendulkar leads both charts with almost 12.5 K runs and 41 centuries. Here is a table of his nearest active competition and how younger they are when compared to Tendulkar.

Current Player Tests Runs Avg 100s Less Tendulkar
Tendulkar 157 12499 54.58 41 -
Ponting 131 10948 56.43 37 1y 8m
Dravid 132 10575 52.35 26 4m OLDER
Kallis 131 10175 54.41 30 2y 6m
Chanderpaul 119 8502 50.01 21 1y 4m
Jayawardene 102 8251 53.23 25 4 yrs

Ponting, Dravid and Kallis are within striking distance of Tendulkar (surprisingly, they have played almost the exact number of Tests). We can eliminate Dravid as he is 4 months older than Tendulkar and presumably will retire earlier. He will also play the same number of matches as Tendulkar, unless Tendulkar has a sustained poor run of form and is dropped while Dravid keeps playing. At this moment, that does not seem very likely. Apart from form, the Board will have to deal with angry public opinion if Tendulkar is ever dropped. Not gonna happen!

Ponting and Kallis have roughly the same shot at overtaking Tendulkar. If  they all retire at the same age as Tendulkar retires, they will have 1.6 and 2.5 years respectively to overtake his total which would be around 2000 runs more. In fact, they may have more time because if they are really close to Tendulkar, they may stick around for a year or so longer. If they maintain their current average, they would need roughly 20-25 Tests to overtake Tendulkar. Last year, the big teams played 12-15 Tests. So it is definitely achievable.

So the main questions are: Will Ponting and Kallis maintain their batting towards the end of their career, or will they have a sudden end like Hayden? Both of them have fallen from their previous near-60 averages and are nowhere near hitting the 1000 runs per year they used to. Ponting has more room here, because a winning Australia will help him retain his place on the basis of captaincy. With the victory in SA, he is back at the top again. Kallis has only his batting form to fall back upon.

The success of Twenty20 may disrupt some of these calculations. More international T20 and ODI matches mean less time for Tests. Nowadays, Test series are down from 5 and 6 Test series to 2 and 3 Test series. IPL and other local T20 tournaments can reduce the incentive of players to continue playing Tests. Injuries are more problematic at older ages. Here, Ponting is worse off. Being the captain, he is forced to be active in all the three forms of the game, whereas Kallis could end his ODI commitment earlier. Tendulkar has already quit T20 and only plays some of India’s ODI matches – he may be saving himself for Tests and one last World Cup.

That being said, last year proves that teams can play several Tests in one year. Australia and South Africa are popular teams and, like the popular kids in school, get to play with every one. Both Ponting and Kallis are exceptionally talented and can raise their game, and their cricket boards will accommodate their desire to hit a target more than other players. In any case, Ponting has a real chance of catching up to Tendulkar’s century count. He is just 4 behind. Unless Tendulkar has a spectacular year, that record is Ponting’s for the taking.

Chanderpaul, too, can be eliminated. He is too far behind, even if he has been racking up huge scores and crossed the 50-barrier recently. It is surprising that he has even scored so many runs after playing so low down the order. Jayawardene is another story. 4 years to hit 4000 runs. Possible, especially with Sri Lanka’s schedule leading them to more matches with the low-ranked Test teams. Whether Jayawardene’s appetite will be enough is a bigger question. Resigning the captaincy after the India defeat showed that he does not have the stomach for handling adversity.

Australia Bested by South Africa Again

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A mini-resurgence by Australia in the T20 matches turned out to be a mirage, as South Africa wins the ODI series with one match still to go. Echoes of how they won the Test series by the second match itself. This time, South Africa do not have their regular captain, Graeme Smith, either. So it is not just good leadership behind SA victories.

If things continue at this rate, Australia are faced with some unpleasant times ahead, with many questions still to be answered. Their return series against South Africa does not promise to be any different. It would be hard to avoid a whitewash in their current form. As we noted before, Ricky Ponting is very unlucky to be the skipper in the midst of a team makeover. Like Sachin Tendulkar, who received the captaincy during some rough times, Ponting is likely to go down in history as a great batsman, but an average captain whose initial good fortune was bolstered by extraordinary talent within the team.

This was not the intended script: Last year, the Australians were on a roll, equalling the Test record for most wins in a row. But like in 2001, India stopped them again with an unexpected victory. But unlike in 2001, it was a real defeat rather than a miracle and portended their slide from the top. There has always been talk of Australian slides, most notably after the 2005 Ashes, but also after a 3-0 whitewash in New Zealand just before the last World Cup. But this time, it seems to be real and will take some time to heal.

But be aware: A weak Australian team does not mean that it is going to lose to Bangladesh tomorrow. All it means is that the matches between the top 4 teams (Australia, SA, India and England) will be more competitive than usual. This is good for cricket all around. But the others (especially Sri Lanka outside home) will have to raise their game considerably to match Australia.

Australia have some breathing space before the SA tour. They are playing five one-dayers and a T20 against New Zealand, which will end by the 15th of February, before flying to South Africa for the tour that will last till April. The first Test starts on February 26.

Haydos Finally Goes

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Matthew Hayden

Matthew Hayden

Matthew Hayden finally quits after a poor year. Funny how quickly these things turn around. Last year, when Australia beat India at home, he was one of the best performers with 3 centuries in 3 matches. The one game he didn’t play was the one that Australia lost. Hayden’s main problem was his age. If he had been younger, there would have been time for a comeback. Also, the fact that Australia lost 2 series to major opponents means that some people have to go. 

Knocking off Hayden from the ODI team meant that the Australian cricket board had already made his decision to drop him from Tests. They probably did not want a situation where he played well in ODI’s and be forced to take him to South Africa, where he could fail in Tests. That would prevent another person from gaining Test opener experience on the SA tour to prepare for the away Ashes later this year.

So Ricky Ponting is the last one standing from the great Australian teams of the recent past. What a list: Warne, McGrath, Langer, Gilchrist and now Hayden. Ponting is also growing old, though he is still 4 years younger than Hayden and still hitting 2 centuries in a single Test. Ponting’s biggest challenge would be to keep Australia winning and help the new players gain experience.

Cricinfo had a weird photo of Matthew Hayden up on its front page all day long (a small part of the photo is shown on the right). Looks like a calibrated snub.

The Unfortunate Timing of Ponting’s Reign

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Ricky Ponting stands in an unenviable position, facing an unprecedented 3-0 whitewash at home. His team has been handicapped by the loss of two of their primary bowlers, Brett Lee and Stuart Clark, at the same time when two of the main runmakers, Hayden and Hussey are struggling for runs.

Ponting is a great batsman and he does not have any rivals for the captaincy at this moment. In fact, his brave efforts (101 and 99) in the previous Test showed that he sets a great example at the top. Mike Hussey was forever tarnished by the 3-0 whitewash by the Kiwis in an ODI series when he was the captain and seems to be out of contention. Michael Clarke is still establishing himself in the team.

So while Ponting does seem likely to remain captain, he will do so at a time when Australia find their dominance broken by South Africa and India, and threatened by England and Sri Lanka. For a long time, while he inherited the superstar team from Steve Waugh, Australia was on a roll. But with the retirements, the loss of form of key batsmen and the blunt bowling attack, it looks like he will end up as one of Australia’s lesser captains.

The way back for Australia is to find good bowling talent. It provides batsmen great confidence if they know that targets can be defended successfully. Even when the West Indies start declining in the early 1990′s, their fast bowlers (Ambrose, Walsh, etc.) helped them win matches and series. Once they lost that, they truly fell to the bottom even with the spectacular Lara in their ranks.

Australia’s batting still remains strong, even though they are not entirely fulfilling their potential. Three of their first 5 batsman have 50+ averages and the others (Katich, Clarke) have 40+ averages. They just haven’t been clicking together as a unit in recent times. They need to get their act together.