Ponting Urges ODI Rethink
Rickey Ponting
Around all the talks of the need to administer a dose of H20 to the sinking limited overs cricket, the game continues to be beset with dead rubbers. As if the seven irrelevant one-dayers between Australia and England were not enough, another long seven-match series (betwen Australia and India) will be thrust upon us.
A concerned Ricky Ponting urged administrators to give limited overs a significant meaning. Ponting believes one way of doing it is to have a point system in place. "The way one-day cricket is played at the moment with one-off series like this, until there is a points system it might get to the same sort of situation as it did in the UK," he said referring to Australia's 6-1 drubbing of England.
"We were 4-0 up and all of a sudden there is talk of teams rotating players in and out and doing all sorts of things. So the important thing I think is we make sure that every game of 50-over cricket has some significant meaning," the Australian skipper said.
Injury woes
Australia embark on the series, starting Sunday in Vadodara, with an undecided batting line-up after Michael Clarke delayed his departure to deal with recurring back problems.
"He's not an old man, so we've got to be very careful that we don't flog him to death as a 27- or 28-year-old as he is now," coach Tim Nielsen said.
"Having just been named as the Twenty20 captain he'll be playing all forms of the game and taking on a really important role for us in Twenty20 cricket moving forward," he further added.
"So when it does come to a head and does flare up pretty badly we've just got to make sure we get him 100 percent right."
Ponting said Australia had much to ponder with Callum Ferguson also sidelined with a serious knee injury.
Former opener Shaun Marsh returns from a hamstring problem but rookie Tim Paine has also been in excellent form.
The Aussies are on a high after their win in the Champions Trophy but Ponting still holds the Indian team in great esteem. Ricky Ponting conceded that Mahendra Singh Dhoni's men would be hard to beat in home conditions.
"They will be particularly hard to beat in India, they always are. They definitely play a lot better at home." he said.
• We were 4-0 up and all of a sudden there is talk of teams rotating players in and out and doing all sorts of things. So the important thing I think is we make sure that every game of 50-over cricket has some significant meaning.
- Ricky Ponting, Australia Skipper