The End of Skipper Punter

Ricky Ponting has stepped down as the captain of the Australian ODI and test team amid must speculations and rumors that he would be axed soon.  Ponting who has been having a torrid time as the captain for the past two years has finally decided to call the part of his life known as captaincy to a close and with it an end of an era in Australian cricket.

Ponting is Australia's most successful captain but in the last few years, with his team on the wane, Ponting could not produce the same results he did when he had a star studded team with the likes of Langer, Warne, McGrath, Martyn, Gillespie, and so many others.  Also personally I feel with his career's end fast approaching the end, Ponting nowadays tries hard to be the same influential and magical skipper he once was.  The last couple of years has taken a heavy toll on this proud warrior.  With the public calling for his blood and results not coming his ways, he has often been made as a sacrificial lamb in front of the media.  But now the day has finally come when the beaten and battered warrior whose last stand as skipper was a magnificent century against India, failed to get his team across the quarterfinals stage has finally thrown in the towel and stepped down as the skipper.

I wonder if Ponting would be remembered as a captain who won Australia two World Cups, two Champions Trophy, and an Ashes series or as the last captain of the glorious era of Australian domination who lost three Ashes series, and was knocked out the World Cup in the knockout stages.  Whatever way people remember him, I'm sure it would be that he was a great player.

If you ask me if I think Ponting is a great captain, I'd say no.  He's a pretty decent captain but not great like his predecessor Steve Waugh.  Records might show Ponting as a great skipper as he has 48 wins in 76 tests and 164 wins in 228 ODIs, but I go against it.  Shane Warne once stated that Ganguly wasn't really a good captain as he won many of the matches due to match winners in his side such as Tendulkar, Dravid, Kumble, Laxman, and Sehwag.  However the fact is that though Ganguly was blessed with such match winners he had an average team to start out with and Ganguly along with John Wright molded a match winning team and laid the foundations for the Indian cricket we see now.  Ricky Ponting was blessed with match winners so much that even his reserves were equally strong.  I remember the feeling when India used to take on Australia during Australia's supremacy, and the feeling was that India would be out played even before the match begun.  Such was the aura the Australian team had, and it truly was invincible.  I think any Tom, Dick and Harry could have got results with that team if he was the skipper.  So the records for Ponting really show how good his team is, not how good his captaincy was.

However post 2007, Australia's fortune has turned, and for the first time in his entire career, I feel Ponting really felt the burden of captaincy.  It was now that the quality of his captaincy would be tested and despite fighting on and putting up a brave front, I feel Ponting has just managed to crawl through the period and if not for his previous success would be out of the team long before.  Ponting's captaincy was called uninspired and lacking imaginative.  But what could the poor guy do?  Before he used to set an attacking field and watch Warne rip through the opposition batting orders, now if he does the same, Nathan Hauritz, Steven Smith or Xavier Doherty aren't capable of using such fields and leak precious runs.  I remember the fields he set for Hauritz when Australia toured India for the test series and it was defensive to say the least.  Any time he bought the field in, the Indian batsmen scored a flurry of boundaries and it got to such a point that Hauitz was bowling to a One Day field set.  Shane Warne was furious that day and lashed out at Ponting's tactics, but what could Punter do?  With his premier spinner and also seamers who often got him the vital early breakthroughs missing, Punter had to do with his limited resources and in that he did a pretty decent job.  His batting line-up also started failing him in the last 24 months and the lack of spinners only added to the pressure.  With his batting incapable of scoring the extra runs needed,and bowling incapable of picking up wickets, Ponting found himself boxed from all sides.  

It is indeed interesting to note that Stephen Fleming found himself in the same situation with the Blackcaps from the moment he was at the helm till the day he retired.  Yet Fleming marshaled his limited resources well and showed the world what the mark of a true leader is.  What he did with Nottinghamshire and New Zealand are legendary.  Punter sadly doesn't fit in the same category.

Ponting is a world class player and probably one of the greatest in the modern era, but as a captain he was very average who excelled when the going was easy.  However I do admire the way he has handled the team in the last 24 months and also put himself up with an angry media, a annoyed public and a selectors panel that was slowly losing it's patience.  He has had more than his share of criticisms and finally he feels it's time for someone else to burden the difficult task of captaining Australia.  Maybe the younger shoulders of Micheal Clarke would be the ideal refreshment and change Australian cricket needs in this time of crisis, and with Australia still clinging desperately onto Ponting the batsmen, I see only brighter days for Australia.  New thinking, new leadership, and a new captain can be Australia's medicine.

As Ponting steps down as captain, I can't help but think of him as the last Caesar of the crumbling Roman Empire.

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Posted in: Australia,Columns,Doherty,England,Hauritz,India,Mc.Grath,Michael Clarke,New Zealand,Ponting,Ricky Ponting,Shane Warne,Stephen Fleming,Steve Smith,Steve Waugh