Ponting says he is chasing benchmarks set by Tendulkar

Only the third batsman to amass 12,000 runs in one-day cricket, Australian skipper Ricky Ponting says he is chasing the benchmarks set by veteran Indian Sachin Tendulkar.

Ponting, after scoring a match-winning unbeaten 111-run knock against England last night to take Australia to their second successive Champions Trophy final, paid tribute to Tendulkar, who is completing 20 years in international cricket this November.

"The number of innings of his I have been able to sit back and watch, I think he is an amazing player. Look at his stats and records and it`s quite incredible for someone to have stayed in the game for 20 years," Ponting said.


"He has set benchmarks for guys like me to chase him and get as close as we can. If I had to last 20 years, I would probably be batting in a wheelchair," he quipped.

Ponting is the first Australian and the third overall, after Tendulkar and Sri Lanka`s Sanath Jayasuriya, to score 12,000 runs in one-dayers.

Tendulkar and Ponting, in fact, are the two biggest achievers in batting in contemporary cricket.

Tendulkar has played 159 Tests and scored 12773 runs with 42 centuries and 53 half centuries at an average of 54.58 runs. In one dayers, he has turned out in 430 matches and scored 16903 runs with 44 hundreds and 91 fifties, averaging 44.48.

Ponting, on the other hand has played 136 Tests and scored 11345 runs with 38 centuries and 48 half centuries, averaging 55.88. In one dayers, he has turned out in 323 matches, scored 12043 runs and hit 28 centuries and 70 fifties, averaging 43.32.

Both Tendulkar and Ponting no longer play Twenty20 internationals for their countries.

"It is a nice achievement but I had no idea before the game how many runs I had scored. I hit runs for my country and when my career is over I can reflect on the successes," Ponting said.

After yesterday`s win, Ponting lauded the younger members of his team for contributing to side`s unbeaten run in the ongoing event.

"We have made it to the finals with relatively young guys. Michael Clarke is missing and so is Nathan Bracken. We are peaking at the right time for the finals," Ponting, shared a 252-run stand with Shane Watson (136) last night, said.

For the last five years, Australia has won everything the ICC has put on stake except for the Twenty20 World Cup. Ponting said he takes pride in the side`s performance.

"The key I think is the mix we bring of youth and experience. When senior guys take responsibility, it allows younger guys to learn and find feet at international level," he said.

"We are playing at a level which would win us the big games. We look to play best cricket when it matters," Ponting added.

Ponting`s own form has won him all-around admiration and the right hander credited it to the brief break he took after the Ashes debacle this summer.

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7:59 AM

Ponting may lose one day cricket captaincy

Ricky Ponting has become the first Australian captain since Billy Murdoch to have surrendered the Ashes in England two times. It was a closely fought series in 2005 and the hosts were in possession of a very strong and balanced outfit led by the inspirational Michael Vaughan.

Ponting had a younger outfit at his disposal when he returned to defend the Ashes, after having snatched it most emphatically at home in the interim period, in the summer of 2009. England too had a relatively inexperienced side with Andrew Strauss having taken over the reigns of captaincy only last winter.

Many experts rated Australia as the favourites to win the Ashes battle despite the fact that Ponting’s boys had not been all that inconsistent during the past one year. They were finding it difficult to regain supremacy in the absence of the stalwarts like Shane Warne, Matthew Hayden, Justin Langer, Adam Gilchrist and Glenn McGrath.

The Australians did possess a formidable bench-strength but their management probably overestimated the youngsters on the basis of their performance in the domestic competitions or in the limited opportunities at the international level.

Obviously Ponting would also have been a pat of the strategy to get the old guard replaced with new blood. But there is a thin line between confidence and over-confidence. The Australians were ruling the world because they had been blessed with an outstanding team and the captain didn’t have much role to play in motivating or guiding the tried and trusted campaigners.

I maintain that it was a blunder on part of the Australians to have let go all their champion characters so quickly. There was still a lot of cricket left in them when the impression was being created that they were over the hill.

Australia, I reckon, would have been a much stronger proposition if people like Warne, Hayden and Gilchrist were still around. Their outstanding performance in the Indian Premier League was a clear reflection of them being in fine shape.

Ponting should share the blame for fast-tracking the exit of the veterans. Being the captain he should have batted for them even if the management had the plans to replace them.

Now it’s Ponting’s turn to face the music. There are many people who desire his head to be put on the chopping block. Although the Board has come out in his support, besides some of his teammates, the feeling has frown that his days in office are numbered.

Ponting has said that he’s is open to the idea of handing deputy Michael Clarke the leadership responsibilities for the Twenty20 and one-day teams, and preserving himself for Test cricket. He has no other options either. He must have realized that the countdown has begun and it’s the beginning of the end for him.

Ponting himself got the one-day leadership in 2002 while Steve Waugh was doing the business in Test cricket. They shared the captaincy until Waugh quit the game 2004. Since then Ponting was the first-choice captain of Australia's Test, ODI and Twenty20 sides.

Now Clarke is most likely to be handed over the reigns for ODI and T20I with Ponting to lead the team in Tests only.

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4:07 AM

Glad to get a break after Ashes: Ponting

relieved at being promised a short break after the Ashes as senior players like him risk exhaustion if they don’t get enough rest in between the choc-a-bloc cricket calendar.

“Rest is really important for all the senior players during such a long and hectic schedule, with no break in our program until April next year. That means almost a year on the road for some of us,” Ponting wrote in his column for an Australian daily.

Ponting will sit out of two Twenty20 games and the start of the seven-match ODI series against England after the Ashes.


“I’m grateful to Cricket Australia for giving me a couple of Twenty20 and one-day matches off after the Test series,” he said.

Australia is tied 1-1 with England in the Ashes after winning the fourth Test at Leeds inside three days. Ponting said the early finish came as a welcome break for players.

“...it was great to give the guys a couple of days off. Ben Hilfenhaus jumped on a train and went to Paris, Marcus North visited his in-laws in Newcastle, Michael Clarke went off to London and I chilled out with my family for a couple of days in Leeds,” Ponting revealed.

Ponting lauded Cricket Australia for giving regular breaks to his teammates and said CA is the best board in the world when it comes to handling players.

“Cricket Australia has been terrific in recent years at finding a game for me to have off here and there with the bigger series in mind,” he said

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10:19 AM

The Ashes: swing in England's favour a joy to behold

Swing when you're winning: England bowler Graham Onions reacts after dismissing Australia captain Ricky Ponting

By so doing, they increased the chances of there being a definite result at Edgbaston, either way, and decreased the prospects of a draw, which would preserve England’s lead.

Still, it was worth the increase in tension. To see England’s two swing bowlers – although you might prefer to classify Graham Onions as a wicket-to-wicket seam-cum-swing bowler – run through Australia in the morning was worth – well, worth waiting through a rained-off Thursday for.

The transformation was astonishing, defying scientific explanation, and the likes of it make cricket in Britain unique. One day the ball does not swing an inch; the next day, on the same ground, it goes round corners. And on the second day of the third Test the Australian batsmen were as startled as an old lady who sees a gang of hoodies coming around a corner.

Both Anderson and Onions were on a hat-trick. Neither achieved one but they still took the honours and opened up the possibility of a definite result here – good for England, or bad – after Thursday’s flatness had suggested a stalemate.

Onions set the tone for England’s surge by taking wickets with his first two balls of the day. If only Andrew Strauss had not started with Stuart Broad after lunch – Broad, out of sorts, setting the wrong tone for the afternoon – Australia’s last two wickets could not have added 60 and given the tourists a working total.

Onions generates surprising pace from a frail physique – not that the souped-up speeds which have been recorded in this series should be believed for a moment. But then Glenn McGrath was slim to the point of thin too.

Anderson is more familiar to the Edgbaston crowd and regularly raised the chant of ‘Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy Anderson’. Yes, he needed the assistance of umpire Rudi Koertzen in a couple of his five dismissals, but it was still the work of a strike bowler, an attack-leader, no longer a novice.

In the 20 Tests since Anderson was recalled in New Zealand, he has averaged 29 per wicket: a goodly price in this day and age of bland pitches. If he was privileged to have a go at a demoralised West Indies at home in May, he had to slog through a long old Test series on sedated Caribbean strips.

It was a shame for England that they could not quite ram their advantage home and demoralise the tourists completely by rolling them over for less than 210 or 220. That would have knocked some wind out of their sails, or shattered the remains of their ‘aura’.

Instead, as usual, they refused to lie down and their tail-enders added those 60 runs which gave Australia a working total.

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1:16 PM