Ricky Ponting should step down captaincy, says Ian Chappell
Ian Chappell, the former Australian Test skipper, has stated that amid reaching his ‘used-by-date’ in capacity of being skipper of the Australian Test squad, Ricky Ponting should now be replaced with a comparatively younger player.
After bagging the fourth Test match by an innings and 157 runs at Melbourne, and getting a lead of 2-1 in the series, team England is quite hopeful in retaining the Ashes.
The embarrassing defeat at Melbourne has only added to the already existing pressure upon Ponting who has led in three unsuccessful Ashes series in the past five years.
Except displaying a hundred in one of the matches, the 36-year old skipper has been observed struggling with the bat throughout the series. In so far played four Test matches, he could barely maintain an average of 16.14 runs.
Prior to the Ashes, despite of being under immense pressure amid the consistent speculations made about his future, Ponting has maintained himself as a player who is still worth keeping in capacity of both a captain and a batsman.
However, Chappell has a rather different opinion to share, and according to him, Ponting should now step down the responsibility and extend the chance for a new leader. While talking in a television programme, Chappell said, “The thing is if you start going
a new direction there’s no point going in that new direction with an old captain. It’s got to be a new captain and a new team and it’s got to be his team.”
The veteran cricketer was of the view that even before the series had taken a start, he had the idea of Ponting to finish with his captaincy. According to him, every player had a used-by date, and Ponting had reached that date.
Adding on to his comment, Chappell said, “He captains the World Cup and whether or not after that he decides to stay on as a player is totally up to him. But as far as I am concerned come August when you’re looking at a Test series, you start looking at
a new captain and a new team.”
Responding to a query about what had gone wrong with the Australian Cricket, the former batsman was of the view that when things tended to go wrong, there was never just one reason behind them. He said that putting the things in place all over again was
not at all difficult for Cricket http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Australia-c746; however, it required time before the fruit of the effort could be achieved.
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