Cricket

Ponting slammed for baffling tactics

Ricky Ponting’s move on the fifth day of the Nagpur Test to employ part timers instead of his regular pacers after the tea interval has come under heavy criticism. The Australian skipper who wanted to step up the slow over-rate to avoid a ban in the next Test match was lambasted by former players and the Australian media.

The Australian, whose headline read: ‘Has Ponting cost Australia?’ and said, “Instead of striving to win the fourth Test here against India with his best bowlers, Ponting used part-timers to try to improve a dreadful over rate, which would have seen him rubbed out of the first Test in Brisbane against New Zealand this month.”

The Age called Ponting’s captaincy “baffling.” It said that Ponting might have cost Australia a chance to square the series.

“In one of the most baffling displays of captaincy seen in the long and proud history of Australian cricket, Ricky Ponting has denied his side a well-deserved chance of securing a famous victory,” it said.

“It is impossible to explain, let alone excuse, the tactics pursued by the Australia think tank. These events occurred directly after an interval. Somehow a group of experienced cricketers and leaders convinced themselves that the over rate was more important than the match,” said another daily.

Tags: Australia, Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2008, India, ricky ponting