Michael Clarke admits he wanted Ricky Ponting out of ODI squad

Michael Clarke admits he wanted Ricky Ponting out of ODI squad

Australia’s skipper Michael Clarke has admitted that he too wanted Ricky Ponting to be dumped from the One Day International (ODI) side, following a streak of low scores in the ongoing Commonwealth Bank Series.

Cricket Australia (CA) has given authority to the captain of having a say in the selection matters and Clarke was amongst the panel of five members, that decided to drop Ponting from the team.

"I’m 100% part of the selection panel," Clarke said. "That’s part now of the captain’s job. We’ve made this decision as a panel. It is tough not having the great Ricky Ponting out there playing for us but that’s the decision we’ve made. Obviously the
2015 World Cup is something we’ve spoken about as a panel. I’m 100% a part of that."

He went onto say, "Ricky was captain of the team for a long time and although he wasn’t a selector he played a big part in selecting the XI players that took the field. I remember getting dropped after the Test match in the West Indies and Punter
was the one who came and told me I hadn’t been selected. He knows it’s certainly not personal. I’m very confident our friendship is a lot stronger than that."

Earlier, Ponting faced almost a similar situation in Test cricket, as he was unable to score runs and was facing severe criticism from all over the world. However, he was retained by the selectors and that finally paid off in the series against
India, where he scored a couple of big centuries.

The veteran came into the limited-over series with a lot of confidence, but failed to reach double figures in five outings. This led to his omission from the squad, as the cricket authorities in the country decided to focus on the ICC World Cup,
2015.

Soon after the decision from the selectors, Ponting decided to hang his boots in limited-over cricket. However, he will continue representing the team in the longest format of the game and has set his sights on delivering strong results in the
Ashes series against England in 2013.

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Posted by Waqar Masood on Feb 23 2012. Filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry