Ricky Ponting should be sacked

[pup11]

Just one decision that cost the side to chance to square the series. This wasn't a marginal decision that went wrong, it was a colossal stuff up and the ultimate price should be paid. In my books there's no way he should be able to continue in the role after he put himself in front of the team like that.

I was as pissed as anyone to see Ponting's atrocious tactics after tea when Australia very much had a realistic chance of winning the game, i was cursing Ponting endlessly and i was calling for him to be sacked at that time, but the fact is when one thinks about the situation with a cool head, one can say there is no other realistic option in the Aussie side who could take the reigns of the side from Ponting atm, maybe Katich could do a better job than Ponting but i doubt he would get a chance, so Ponting imo would retire from international cricket as the Australian captain, unless the performance graph of the team dips alarmingly.

 

[Uppercut]

At present? Yes

Before Ind-Aus series? Yes, but by a little

Before SL series? Probably, but not much

Before SA series? No

Before Ind in Aus series? Absolutely no.

During the SA series, Dhoni captained the side far more effectively than Kumble. But i would only have replaced Kumble before the Australia series anyway. Dhoni may not have been anything special before SA, but Kumble was a properly bad captain. Was the worst in test cricket at that time IMO.

 

[pup11]

Australia's cricketers arrive back home

Ponting predicts return to winning ways
Cricinfo staff

November 11, 2008

Ricky Ponting believes that Australia are capable of reaffirming their status as the leading nation in Test cricket, but to do so they must put their 2-0 series loss to India behind them as quickly as possible.

Ponting was speaking at Sydney Airport, after his team's return from India, and with six Tests in prospect against New Zealand and South Africa, his sights were set firmly on victory. "I've got total confidence that we can bounce back and that we can win every Test we play in Australia this year," he said.

"It's important we put that series behind us as quickly as we can and we start focussing on whatever positives there were out of the Indian series and start looking ahead to New Zealand and South Africa in Australia."

Australia's 2-0 loss to India has raised concerns that the world champions' dominance of the game is fading, particularly after the retirement of the likes of Glenn McGrath, Shane Warne and Adam Gilchrist.

But Ponting said the team was motivated to get back to winning ways fast. "Just seeing the look on some of the guys' faces on the plane," he said, "there is genuine excitement about moving on from the Indian series."

Australia were outplayed in every aspect in India, with Ponting coming under intense criticism for his handling of the deciding fourth Test in Nagpur, with commentators suggesting he used part-time bowlers instead of his strike options at a crucial point of the game because he was too worried about being penalised for a slow over-rate to press for victory.

But Ponting hit back at his critics. "I still feel the decisions I made weren't negative at all, I've had an opportunity to sit back over the last couple of days and think about those decisions I made there and then," he said. "Even talking to other players, I'm very comfortable with the decision that I made.

"I will continue to be a ruthless captain and a ruthless player and I expect all my other teammates are in exactly the same boat. And if they're not now, having lost a Test series in India 2-0, we have to look around for some other guys."

Ponting predicted his team would play "some of the best Test cricket we've seen for a while" during the summer series in Australia but acknowledged they had to improve their game. "We have to play at a higher level than we did through the India tour, there's no doubt about that, and there's no excuses and there's no reason why we can't."

Should that be seen as a warning to all the non-perfroming players from the Indian tour, start performing soon or your heads would roll....

 

[pup11]

During the SA series, Dhoni captained the side far more effectively than Kumble. But i would only have replaced Kumble before the Australia series anyway. Dhoni may not have been anything special before SA, but Kumble was a properly bad captain. Was the worst in test cricket at that time IMO.

I think Dhoni' leadership was always miles ahead of Kumble, i terms of innovation and instinctiveness in his captaincy, Kumble on the other hand was a very methodical and reserved captain and Dhoni would have taken over the captaincy from Dravid in test cricket too if his own place in the test side wasn't under the scanner.

So for me Dhoni would have proved to be a better captain than Kumble at any stage...

 

[Richard]

Australia's cricketers arrive back home

Ponting predicts return to winning ways
Cricinfo staff

November 11, 2008

Ricky Ponting believes that Australia are capable of reaffirming their status as the leading nation in Test cricket, but to do so they must put their 2-0 series loss to India behind them as quickly as possible.

Ponting was speaking at Sydney Airport, after his team's return from India, and with six Tests in prospect against New Zealand and South Africa, his sights were set firmly on victory. "I've got total confidence that we can bounce back and that we can win every Test we play in Australia this year," he said.

"It's important we put that series behind us as quickly as we can and we start focussing on whatever positives there were out of the Indian series and start looking ahead to New Zealand and South Africa in Australia."

Australia's 2-0 loss to India has raised concerns that the world champions' dominance of the game is fading, particularly after the retirement of the likes of Glenn McGrath, Shane Warne and Adam Gilchrist.

But Ponting said the team was motivated to get back to winning ways fast. "Just seeing the look on some of the guys' faces on the plane," he said, "there is genuine excitement about moving on from the Indian series."

Australia were outplayed in every aspect in India, with Ponting coming under intense criticism for his handling of the deciding fourth Test in Nagpur, with commentators suggesting he used part-time bowlers instead of his strike options at a crucial point of the game because he was too worried about being penalised for a slow over-rate to press for victory.

But Ponting hit back at his critics. "I still feel the decisions I made weren't negative at all, I've had an opportunity to sit back over the last couple of days and think about those decisions I made there and then," he said. "Even talking to other players, I'm very comfortable with the decision that I made.

"I will continue to be a ruthless captain and a ruthless player and I expect all my other teammates are in exactly the same boat. And if they're not now, having lost a Test series in India 2-0, we have to look around for some other guys."

Ponting predicted his team would play "some of the best Test cricket we've seen for a while" during the summer series in Australia but acknowledged they had to improve their game. "We have to play at a higher level than we did through the India tour, there's no doubt about that, and there's no excuses and there's no reason why we can't."

Should that be seen as a warning to all the non-perfroming players from the Indian tour, start performing soon or your heads would roll....

I don't imagine there's that much doubt Cameron White is out again for now, presumably Stuart Clark will come straight back in and if he doesn't start to perform again I'll be very surprised.

I honestly don't see Lee and Johnson being dropped if they average, say, 35 over the course of the NZ series and both legs against South Africa. I reckon it'll take really bad performances for either to be axed. Both have had faith shown in them through worse than the India tour.

Haddin surely will start to perform, of course. And of the top-order batsmen, there's only Hayden with any doubt over him. Will be interesting to see what happens there - he's already had the longest stay of faith for any Australian batsman in terms of length of time between centuries, so he's certainly established as being beyond the field. Whether it'll stay that way, only time will tell. I hope Kyle Mills and Dale Steyn can test him incessantly with the inswingers.

 

[Uppercut]

I don't imagine there's that much doubt Cameron White is out again for now, presumably Stuart Clark will come straight back in and if he doesn't start to perform again I'll be very surprised.

I honestly don't see Lee and Johnson being dropped if they average, say, 35 over the course of the NZ series and both legs against South Africa. I reckon it'll take really bad performances for either to be axed. Both have had faith shown in them through worse than the India tour.

Haddin surely will start to perform, of course. And of the top-order batsmen, there's only Hayden with any doubt over him. Will be interesting to see what happens there - he's already had the longest stay of faith for any Australian batsman in terms of length of time between centuries, so he's certainly established as being beyond the field. Whether it'll stay that way, only time will tell. I hope Kyle Mills and Dale Steyn can test him incessantly with the inswingers.

Don't see why Hayden's place would be remotely under threat after one series in which he averaged 33 and had was given a few smellers from the umpires. Considering he averaged 82 against India in the series before. I think you may be the only person in the world who would maybe under certain circumstances consider thinking about theoretically wanting to perhaps question Hayden's place in the team.

 

[Richard]

It's certainly under no immediate threat nor should it be, but selectors have been known to work in inexplicable ways and drop players who had next to no good reason to be dropped.

Michael Bevan, Darren Lehmann and Simon Katich being three recent Australian examples.

BTW Hayden received 2 dropped catches in the series in India which cancelled-out the 2 bad out decisions he got.

 

[Top_Cat]

BTW Hayden received 2 dropped catches in the series in India which cancelled-out the 2 bad out decisions he got.

Haha, they so don't.

 

[Richard]

Why? Because the drops came in an innings where he had to throw everything at a forlorn assault on a near-impossible target?

 

[Top_Cat]

Why? Because the drops came in an innings where he had to throw everything at a forlorn assault on a near-impossible target?

That and at least the first poor decision sawed him off 2nd ball on a pitch he was pretty likely to score a few runs on. Either way, the whole sliding doors thing makes it impossible to tell for sure.

 

[Richard]

Nonetheless, in the series he escaped what should have been dismissal on 2 occasions and was dismissed wrongly on 2 occasions.

There's certainly no way he had a particularly unlucky series, it's just for some reason people seem to think batsmen deserve dropped catches but don't deserve bad out decisions in return.

 

[Uppercut]

Nonetheless, in the series he escaped what should have been dismissal on 2 occasions and was dismissed wrongly on 2 occasions.

There's certainly no way he had a particularly unlucky series, it's just for some reason people seem to think batsmen deserve dropped catches but don't deserve bad out decisions in return.

Because usually the let-offs outnumber the bad decisions significantly. So a neutral series is about 5 let-offs, 1 bad decision. A lucky series is 6 let-offs, no bad decisions. An unlucky series is 2 of each.

 

[Richard]

See, I don't think that because good fortune normally outweighs misfortune, that makes batsmen entitled to it.

A let-off is a let-off and a saw-off is a saw-off and they remain equal-sized pieces of luck, even though the good is much more frequent than the bad.

 

[Burgey]

I wouldn't count Packer-gutted teams as they were clearly a different matter, and obviously Packer's Australians weren't the same as Australia, but yeah, I'd forgotten about Ian Chappell not captaining his final series against West Indies.

Anyone know why Greg did the job then? Has always seemed inexplicable to me.

Ian had had enough IIRC and stepped down in favour of his brother.

 

[Craig]

The fact that Australia lost has nothing to do with it. This thread would exist even if Australia won the series 4-0.

I doubt it.

 

[Precambrian]

During the SA series, Dhoni captained the side far more effectively than Kumble. But i would only have replaced Kumble before the Australia series anyway. Dhoni may not have been anything special before SA, but Kumble was a properly bad captain. Was the worst in test cricket at that time IMO.

Not really. Kumble was coming off a famour win at (of all places) Perth. Unless you have a preconceived bias against him, I don't see why you rate him as WORST.

 

[tooextracool]

I think Dhoni' leadership was always miles ahead of Kumble, i terms of innovation and instinctiveness in his captaincy, Kumble on the other hand was a very methodical and reserved captain and Dhoni would have taken over the captaincy from Dravid in test cricket too if his own place in the test side wasn't under the scanner.

So for me Dhoni would have proved to be a better captain than Kumble at any stage...

Have to say that I have a lot of respect for Dhoni as captain. He trusts his gut instincts and is not unwilling to go against convention irrespective of how some of his decision might be treated in the press. He also seems to be a very likeable person on the whole and its easy to tell that many of the players enjoy playing under him.

 

[four_or_six]

Reckon Ponting needs to take a chill pill.

 

[Uppercut]

Not really. Kumble was coming off a famour win at (of all places) Perth. Unless you have a preconceived bias against him, I don't see why you rate him as WORST.

Vaughan
Vettori
Malik
Gayle
Ponting
Jayawardene
Smith
Kumble

Who do you think is the worst?

 

[Richard]

Reckon Ponting needs to take a chill pill.

Always has done. If Ponting was capable of keeping his cool more often he'd be a good rather than middling captain.

However, there's a fair bit of nonsense in that article.

However, it is the squabble between Ponting and his two outspoken predecessors that threatens most to destabilise Australia as the team attempts to rebuild leading into next year's Ashes series.

How on Earth does what Allan Border and Ian Chappell think about Ponting make any significant impact on the stability of the team?

And as for Mark Waugh saying that Symonds hadn't done enough to regain his BaggyGreen... sheesh, former Test player criticises one single piece of selection at current time! Stop the press!!!!!!!!!!!

And to boot... is it really unusual for current Test players to be angry about Ian Chappell comments? I thought that'd been happening regularly for the last 30 years?