Ponting ponders future after Adelaide disaster
The reversal in Adelaide has been a real tough one for the Australian captain Ricky Ponting who now stares at the prospect of losing two consecutive Ashes series.
The mauling at the hands of the old enemy has left Ponting perplexed and is set to give him some sleepless nights as the build up to the third test at Perth gets underway.
The Australians are enduring a woeful streak in test cricket having lost four out of their last five test matches since they won against http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Pakistan-c755 at Lords earlier in the year.
They lost the next test of that series at Leeds before losing both their games against http://www.senore.com/Cricket/India-c750, drew the first test of the current series at Brisbane before the Adelaide capitulation.
Although there is a bigger worry for Punter heading into the third test and that worry is his lack of runs in the last few test matches for his team.
His only century this year was against Pakistan at Hobart, that effort too came after a sitter was dropped by Mohammad Aamer early on in his innings.
He has scored half centuries consistently including one in the second innings at Brisbane yet the big runs have dried up for the right hander, currently the second highest run getter of all time.
He was quick to admit that his own form was his biggest concern for the time being.
He added that his team was also trying to figure out the mistakes made collectively but for him his own lack of form was a real worry.
"Don't worry about winning the games, I've got to make some runs," Ponting said with typical candour. "It's as simple as that, there's a great challenge for me to score runs but there's a great challenge for me to captain the side well
in Perth and give the guys the best chance to get our way back into the series," he said. "We have to win two games, and we have to play good cricket to win a single game."
"We've been doing a lot of talking about things, about what we want to do and how to change and rectify things, but our actions have been what has let us down so far," he said. "Skills at different times have let us down and we understand
that."
Ponting conceded that he was shocked with the way his team’s graph went down after their dominance in the first three test matches of the ongoing series.
The Aussies were all over England and had built a substantial 200 plus lead through a collective effort on through out the first half of the match. It all changed dramatically once England came out to bat on day four of the test, they
ended their innings in at tea the following day having reached an astonishing 517/1.
All three batsmen who batted in the second dig scored hundreds with Alastair Cook smashing an unbeaten 235.
"You probably wouldn't have thought so after the first three days in Brisbane. I thought the way everything was heading for us up there, it looked like we were playing some good cricket and we were on the right track. We had a group of
players together skill-wise who were going to be good enough to win the series”, concluded a bemused Ponting.
There is some reflection time for the Aussies as the Perth test is still a week away, in the meantime the English team has a three day match to contend with, while Ponting and his men try and re-group for the make or break test at the
fastest wicket in the world at the WACA ground.
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