I feel like I've been watching Ricky Ponting for a long time. If there's one sporting figure that makes me feel old, it's actually Ricky Ponting. Not Derek Jeter or Roger Federer or even Tiger Woods. But then he's always made me feel that way since he broke into the test side as a 19 year old prodigy. It's very strange to see him at this point in his career being pushed out of his position which looked like a birthright on the way up. The vitriol poured on the man is even more remarkable given his accomplishments as a player. Everybody carries on about Don Bradman, but by all accounts he was equally obnoxious in person if not more so than Ricky Ponting. I get it that there's some part of a professional athlete's job description to be likeable, but I've always felt people are asking way too much of this guy.
Maybe I'm a bit weird that way. I can handle Barry Bonds being Bary Bonds, Canseco being Canseco, Clemens being Clemens; steroids and lies and bad attitudes and rudeness and all. I don't expect them to be role models. I liked John McEnroe at his rudest. I liked Michael Jordan at his most disdainful, Charles Barkley at his most pugnacious and Shane Heal for standing toe to toe with Sir Charles at the Atlanta Olympics, screaming back at his face. Ricky sledges? "Why not?" I thought. Sledge away, son. He wins ugly? Sure beats losing beautifully.
Anyway, he quit the captaincy today and the obits on his captaincy are in.
The difference was as simple as Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath, who played all the Waugh years, and all the Mark Taylor years before him, but only half of Ponting’s. Indubitably, a cricket captain is only as good as his team. Ponting’s was much turned over, became brittle and unstable, yet somehow was allowed to grow old and stagnant, too. It was also distracted by the Indian Premier League revolution.
It was said of Sir Donald Bradman that his unique advantage as captain was himself as batsman. It could be said of captain Ponting that he had only himself upon who to rely. Ponting batted at No. 3 throughout his tenure, indeed has batted in that keystone position exclusively for the past 10 years. It is a singular feat of shouldered responsibility; Sachin Tendulkar, for instance, has never played a Test innings at No. 3.
In his insistence to bat so high, Ponting was in the end too stubborn. The strain showed in other aspects of his captaincy, and grew. But Ponting’s fault was to care too much rather than too little. Besides, no likely usurper emerged, either as captain or No. 3, a detail that tells of Australia’s cricketing decline.
Well I've been saying for about 6years that we don't have as bright a future beyond Ponting as we once thought. So it surprises me a little bit that people are so keen to consign him to the dustbin.
Can he bat any better? Very doubtful. He might strike the occasional vein of form but they will be fewer and last less time with every passing season.
And, with every match he plays on, the reinvigoration of the Australian cricket team is further delayed. How many ageing batsmen can the team carry? Already there are Simon Katich and Mike Hussey, both almost 36. Age marks the prospects of both, yet Katich and Hussey have far more to prove and therefore more reason to play on than Ponting who, despite his record as a thrice-losing Ashes captain, has achieved everything in the game that he could have ever dreamed of.
Each night Julia Gillard must stick pins in her Kevin07 doll; Tony Abbott can doubtless see the face of Malcolm Turnbull every time he pounds the heavy bag. Don't make Michael Clarke carry the baggage of an old leader into a new future.
I don't know about all that. Seems to me they should just let him bat and see what's left in the tank before kicking him to the curb. It's not as if there are better batsmen a-plenty. In its longest run, it's only going to be another couple of summers and then he will well and truly be gone. But you might wait another lifetime to see a batsman as amazing as Ricky Ponting play for Australia. I just don't get the vitriol. You'd think he slept with everybody's spouse - thrice.
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