Eight years after it was the victim of perhaps the best day in Ricky Ponting’s brilliant career, India has the perfect opportunity to exact revenge on Australia’s captain.
It was on March 23, 2003, that Ponting struck a scintillating 140 not out to drive his team to an unassailable total in the World Cup final against India in Johannesburg.
On Thursday, 8 years and a day after that loss, an India team containing six survivors from Johannesburg could end Ponting’s tenure as Australia’s leader if it wins the World Cup quarterfinal at home in Ahmedabad.
Pressure on Ponting moved beyond speculation this week when the Sydney Morning Herald, usually a sober newspaper, quoted an unnamed senior Cricket Australia official as saying, “We need to be looking at the future. It’s time for us to make a change.”
Source: nytimes
By far the best way for Ponting to keep his position would be to lead Australia to a fourth consecutive World Cup victory, which would be third under his captaincy.
But if Australia loses to India, the combination of failure in the World Cup and in the past two Ashes series against England, along with poor batting form and disciplinary problems, could take Ponting down after nine years on the job. “We’re waiting for the next thing to blow up,” the official was quoted by The Herald as saying. “We don’t go a game without there being some issues with him.”
Ponting’s teammates rallied around their leader this week, citing his experience, authority and record as a player. “He’s a guy we all look up to,” the fast bowler Mitchell Johnson said. “He’s copped a fair bit lately, but he’s got the experience to be able to deal with it.”
On Wednesday, Ponting said in Ahmedabad that he had no intention of stepping down as captain and that he “will be playing for a few more years.
“There has been stuff about me retiring that is completely false, untrue, never contemplated retiring,” he said.
The questions about Ponting only raise the stakes for an occasion that hardly needs it.
When India and Australia and India meet for a spot in the final four of the World Cup, it will be No. 2 in one-day internationals against the No. 1; the main host of the tournament taking on the three-time reigning champion; and the sport’s financial powerhouse battling cricket’s traditional power.
It is, as Australia’s coach Tim Nielsen said this week, “a mini Grand Final in itself.”
Grand Finals are Australia’s biggest sports events, to rugby league and Australian rules football what the Super Bowl is to the N.F.L.
Neither team has as yet been wholly convincing so far in the World Cup. Australia was rarely tested after it qualified from the much weaker of the tournament’s two groups.
It won four matches easily, was rained out against Sri Lanka and lost to Pakistan, ending a staggering run of 34 World Cup matches without a defeat.
India, which advanced out of the other group, was tested, and to some extent it was found wanting. It lost to South Africa, tied England and looked below par in the field and with the ball.
For India, one player must withstand even greater scrutiny than Ponting. Sachin Tendulkar is the sole contemporary of his who can claim he has achieved even more with the bat. He is poised for yet another scarcely conceivable feat — his next score of 100 or more in international cricket will be his 100th in all formats.
Nineteen months older than the 36-year-old Ponting, Tendulkar might also serve as an inspiration for him in the way he has come back to his best form after some comparatively fallow years in this mid-thirties.
The key battle could be between Australia’s trio of ultraquick bowlers, whose selection represents a high-risk strategy, and India’s formidable top-order batting. Most teams have long conceded that there is little to be done about Tendulkar except wait for him to get old. Brett Lee, Australia’s only survivor of 2003 other than Ponting, Mitchell Johnson and Shaun Tait, will certainly want try out theories that Tendulkar’s flamboyant opening partner, Virender Sehwag, the prolific top order man Gautam Gambhir, the classy rookie Virat Kohli, and the hard-hitting all-rounder Yuvraj Singh can all be unsettled and dismissed by the short-pitched delivery that rears toward the head or upper body.
Hussey expects his team will try that strategy. “I would believe our bowlers would like be aggressive and rattle the Indian batsmen,” he said Tuesday. “I suppose we could bowl short ones at them and have them on the hop.”
Singh, who batted brilliantly in India’s group stage victory over West Indies on Sunday, argued that concerns had been exaggerated, saying “If you have an issue with the short ball, you won’t be the No. 1 test team and No. 2 one-day team.”
While India vs. Australia is drawing the most attention of the remaining quarterfinals, the other two matches on Friday and Saturday carry their own intrigue. The question around the Friday match at Mirpur in Bangladesh is whether a combination of New Zealand’s traditional capacity for overachievement and South Africa’s propensity to implode will be enough for New Zealand to overcome a huge gap in sheer firepower. New Zealand’s hopes will get a lift if captain Daniel Vettori recovers from injury.
On Saturday in Colombo, Sri Lanka entertains England, which performs best against teams it should logically have little chance of beating. On that basis, Sri Lanka has every reason to be very wary, indeed.
It was on March 23, 2003, that Ponting struck a scintillating 140 not out to drive his team to an unassailable total in the World Cup final against India in Johannesburg.
On Thursday, 8 years and a day after that loss, an India team containing six survivors from Johannesburg could end Ponting’s tenure as Australia’s leader if it wins the World Cup quarterfinal at home in Ahmedabad.
Pressure on Ponting moved beyond speculation this week when the Sydney Morning Herald, usually a sober newspaper, quoted an unnamed senior Cricket Australia official as saying, “We need to be looking at the future. It’s time for us to make a change.”
Source: nytimes
By far the best way for Ponting to keep his position would be to lead Australia to a fourth consecutive World Cup victory, which would be third under his captaincy.
But if Australia loses to India, the combination of failure in the World Cup and in the past two Ashes series against England, along with poor batting form and disciplinary problems, could take Ponting down after nine years on the job. “We’re waiting for the next thing to blow up,” the official was quoted by The Herald as saying. “We don’t go a game without there being some issues with him.”
Ponting’s teammates rallied around their leader this week, citing his experience, authority and record as a player. “He’s a guy we all look up to,” the fast bowler Mitchell Johnson said. “He’s copped a fair bit lately, but he’s got the experience to be able to deal with it.”
On Wednesday, Ponting said in Ahmedabad that he had no intention of stepping down as captain and that he “will be playing for a few more years.
“There has been stuff about me retiring that is completely false, untrue, never contemplated retiring,” he said.
The questions about Ponting only raise the stakes for an occasion that hardly needs it.
When India and Australia and India meet for a spot in the final four of the World Cup, it will be No. 2 in one-day internationals against the No. 1; the main host of the tournament taking on the three-time reigning champion; and the sport’s financial powerhouse battling cricket’s traditional power.
It is, as Australia’s coach Tim Nielsen said this week, “a mini Grand Final in itself.”
Grand Finals are Australia’s biggest sports events, to rugby league and Australian rules football what the Super Bowl is to the N.F.L.
Neither team has as yet been wholly convincing so far in the World Cup. Australia was rarely tested after it qualified from the much weaker of the tournament’s two groups.
It won four matches easily, was rained out against Sri Lanka and lost to Pakistan, ending a staggering run of 34 World Cup matches without a defeat.
India, which advanced out of the other group, was tested, and to some extent it was found wanting. It lost to South Africa, tied England and looked below par in the field and with the ball.
For India, one player must withstand even greater scrutiny than Ponting. Sachin Tendulkar is the sole contemporary of his who can claim he has achieved even more with the bat. He is poised for yet another scarcely conceivable feat — his next score of 100 or more in international cricket will be his 100th in all formats.
Nineteen months older than the 36-year-old Ponting, Tendulkar might also serve as an inspiration for him in the way he has come back to his best form after some comparatively fallow years in this mid-thirties.
The key battle could be between Australia’s trio of ultraquick bowlers, whose selection represents a high-risk strategy, and India’s formidable top-order batting. Most teams have long conceded that there is little to be done about Tendulkar except wait for him to get old. Brett Lee, Australia’s only survivor of 2003 other than Ponting, Mitchell Johnson and Shaun Tait, will certainly want try out theories that Tendulkar’s flamboyant opening partner, Virender Sehwag, the prolific top order man Gautam Gambhir, the classy rookie Virat Kohli, and the hard-hitting all-rounder Yuvraj Singh can all be unsettled and dismissed by the short-pitched delivery that rears toward the head or upper body.
Hussey expects his team will try that strategy. “I would believe our bowlers would like be aggressive and rattle the Indian batsmen,” he said Tuesday. “I suppose we could bowl short ones at them and have them on the hop.”
Singh, who batted brilliantly in India’s group stage victory over West Indies on Sunday, argued that concerns had been exaggerated, saying “If you have an issue with the short ball, you won’t be the No. 1 test team and No. 2 one-day team.”
While India vs. Australia is drawing the most attention of the remaining quarterfinals, the other two matches on Friday and Saturday carry their own intrigue. The question around the Friday match at Mirpur in Bangladesh is whether a combination of New Zealand’s traditional capacity for overachievement and South Africa’s propensity to implode will be enough for New Zealand to overcome a huge gap in sheer firepower. New Zealand’s hopes will get a lift if captain Daniel Vettori recovers from injury.
On Saturday in Colombo, Sri Lanka entertains England, which performs best against teams it should logically have little chance of beating. On that basis, Sri Lanka has every reason to be very wary, indeed.
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