Ponting brushes aside captaincy concerns
On the eve of one arguably the most important test match of his life Australian captain Ricky Ponting brushed aside concerns about his captaincy claiming that the foremost task on his mind is the Perth test and the rest can be taken care
off in due course.
He added that the decision of captaincy was not his own and that the Australian Cricket Board should decide the future course of action and whether if he was not to be retained or not.
"Probably not a decision for me to make," Ponting said when asked if he would still be captain if http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Australia-c746 lost the Ashes. "I don't pick myself as captain so, look, in all honestly, I haven't thought about that at all.
"The decision's completely out of my hands. At the end of the day, I'll do my best to make sure we're on a winning end this week and I'll do my best as a player to make sure I score runs and lead the team the best way possible. Then the
powers that be will make those decisions I guess at the end of the series, or after this Test match."
Ponting added that he wanted to do his utmost to bring the team back in the Ashes series and ensure that the contest goes the full distance; a loss at Perth would seal the deal for the hosts and bring curtains to their campaign of regaining
the little urn.
He added that the onus of success is on his star studded batting line-up especially since the bowling side is inexperienced and lacking in quality, the second highest run getter in test history also added that he had to score a lot of
runs in the remainder of the series.
"I know a lot of our success revolves around how well our batting does at the top of the order and my input in the series so far hasn't been what it's needed to be for us to win games," he said. "So purely and simply I need to stand up, I need to score runs
and we need to play better cricket than we have in the last two Test matches."
"Obviously that has to be a positive one for us or its game, set and match," he said. "We are priming ourselves to play our best game so far in the series and we know we have to do it by a long way if we want to win the game."
The wicket for the third test is set to suit the Australian style of play, the added pace and bounce of the track is going to favour the bowlers who have toiled hard for wickets in the first two tests.
The last two innings of the series have been nothing less than a nightmare for Ponting’s men. They conceded a combined tally of 1037 runs in the second innings at Gabba and the first dig at Adelaide.
The bowlers only succeeded in taking 6 wickets in the process, two English players scored double hundreds while Alastair Cook who scored the first double ton at Gabba scored another ton at Adelaide.
In such a scenario the Aussie think tank has to make some important decisions before the Perth test begins. They are yet to decide if Mitchell Johnson would make a comeback and who would play as the lone spinner in the team Steven Smith or the left armer
http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Michael-Beer-c1949.
Even the batting order would have one new member as Phil Hughes makes a comeback to test cricket after bowing out of the last Ashes series in England due to poor form, the left hander would be replacing Simon Katich who has been ruled out of the series after
sustaining an Achilles injury at Adelaide.
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