Ricky Ponting calls for Australian domestic cricket overhaul
The beleaguered Australian captain Ricky Ponting has called for a major reshuffle in the domestic cricket set-up in the country after suffering a crushing defeat in the 2010-11 Ashes series against a rampant English team.
The Aussies endured arguably the most humiliating defeat of their Test match history as their rivals registered three innings wins in the five-match series to record their first Ashes win down under in 24 years.
Ponting sat out the last match of the series after suffering from a fracture in his small finger during the third Test played in Perth- the only match that the hosts won.
After the series ended, Ponting has called for an overhaul of the system in a bid to regain the lost glory of the great Australian team of the last two decades.
“There is a review after every season, of which I'm always a big part,” Ponting wrote in his column in the
Australian. “I understand there will be a lot more involved in the review this time around and rightly so. It's going to be a lot more in-depth than I've ever been involved in and probably as big as those conducted when Australia was really struggling
in the mid-80s. There are a lot of things that need looking at and I fully support such a review… It's going to be really interesting to see what the review brings up. I think the whole structure of Australian cricket needs looking at.”
Ponting, who is affectionately known as Punter in Australian cricketing circles, is one of the greatest batsmen of all time with a tally of more than 12,000 runs in the highest format of the game. He has also amassed 39 hundreds in 152
Test matches for his team where he ended at the winning side a staggering 99 times.
However, he endured a wretched run in the recent Ashes failing to post a single ton in the four Tests he played in and going past the 50-run mark just once.
He added during his stint with the media that he wants the selectors and Cricket http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Australia-c746 to make a fair call when they reassess the summer of cricket. He is not shying away from the fact that his own form is under massive scrutiny whenever
the review takes place.
“I certainly expect my performances as captain and batsman to be heavily scrutinised,” Ponting said. “You've got to expect that after the disappointing series I've had. The captain, vice-captain, coaching staff and selectors, we're all
in this together and we have to find a way out of it together. Michael and I both understood going into this series that if we didn't contribute heavily with the bat that there would be a lot of questions asked about us as players and leaders and that's the
way it has turned out.”
Ponting does not know yet about his future but has made it obvious that he wants to be a part of the Australian squad for the World Cup set to be played in the sub-continent in February 2011.
He claimed that he has an earnest desire of becoming the first man in the history of the game to lead his team to a hat-trick of World Cup titles, albeit with their current dismal form, few are tipping the four-time champions for the title.
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