John Inverarity hints at Ponting’s impending retirement – Cricket News Update
http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Robert-John-Inverarity-c85980, chief of Australia’s National Selection Panel, has hinted at an impending end to Ponting’s career, after the former skipper was dropped from the national ODI squad today.
Ponting has been in poor form recently, scoring a total of 18 runs for an average of 3.60 in five innings during the ongoing Commonwealth Bank series. Despite the fact that the he expressed the wish to regain his form, ruling out any possibility of stepping
down, and making himself available for selection for the upcoming game against http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Sri-Lanka-c758, Inverarity announced that the NSP had decided to drop the former skipper from the limited-overs line-up.
“Ricky Ponting has been dropped from the ODI side and the national selection panel has spoken about moving towards the 2015 World Cup," Inverarity announced. "The door is never closed on anybody, but it's a strong indication there. We were very keen for
http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Ricardo-Gouveia-c84824 to play in these games because we intended to blend in some younger players, and his influence for them has been remarkable. But we need to at some stage move on.”
Praising Ponting for being a great cricketer and an admirable human being, whose cricketing experience had been extremely beneficial for the younger players, the chief selector added that there was no room for “sentiment” in professional sport, and the decision
had been made keeping in mind what was best for the team and for Australian cricket.
Inverarity stressed that the ultimate decision to retire had been left up to Ponting, who will be discussing it with his family, and manager.
While his ODI future looks bleak, Ponting’s Test career still hangs in the balance. Expressing the wish that the right-handed batsman will continue to play Test cricket for http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Australia-c746, the chief selector added that there were “no guarantees,” because retirement
from the limited-overs format would obviously slow Ponting down considerably.
“If he drops out of the ODIs then there is a possible lack of momentum there,” Inverarity observed.
The veteran batsman was an integral part of the squad which defeated http://www.senore.com/Cricket/India-c750 in a Test series earlier this year, in January, the highlight of his performance being a double century (221) scored during the last match.
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