Michael Clarke Indicates Ricky Ponting Could Hit Form of His Life
Sreelata Yellamrazu: It would seem that the current Australian captain is not merely speaking tall about the former Australian captain in a bid to intimidate the South African cricket team. It would appear he is sending a message to the rest of the cricket world. But can Rick Sreelata Yellamrazu:
It would seem that the current Australian captain is not merely speaking tall about the former Australian captain in a bid to intimidate the South African cricket team. It would appear he is sending a message to the rest of the cricket world. But can Ricky Ponting vindicate Clarke’s faith?
Ponting has rarely made bones about the fact that he feels that catching up to Sachin Tendulkar is not a feat beyond him although age has caught up with both men who are ranked amongst the highest run getters in the game. However, in the past couple of years, the Indian batting maestro has really accelerated forward to now stand on the brink of 100 100s in international cricket.
Ponting, on the other hand, has seen the fall outs of a declining Australian team and his captaincy came under intense pressure following the third Ashes loss under his captaincy. The change of guard was expected to not only release Ponting from the burden of captaincy with Cricket Australia keeping an eye to the future by naming Michael Clarke as the Australian captain but also, would test the hunger quotient of Ponting the batsman.
However, ahead of the South Africa Australia ODI series, Clarke is more than optimistic that Ponting will serve Australian cricket with panache. Although the war of words usually precede that on the field, it would seem that Clarke was doing more than trying to intimidate South Africa. Instead Clarke has reiterated faith in his former captain, even sticking his neck out to suggest that Ponting could go as far as bagging the Man of the Series award by the time Australia’s tour of South Africa is completed.
Clarke has often highly regarded Ponting as a mentor, captain and colleague and although one would be tempted to think that this would be a way of ruse to get the senior batsman pumping ahead of the important series, Clarke is also basing his opinion having watched Ponting carefully and closely over the past few months.
Ponting himself had previously dismissed ideas of retirement, claiming there was still plenty of cricket left in him and as a batsman, he was as hungry as someone like Tendulkar to continue to make dents against the opposition. The challenge before South Africa would clearly be to tame the former Australian captain and keep him down.