Ponting worried about the current dearth of batting talent in Australia.
Australian batsman Aaron Finch failed to live up to the expectations in only his third outing in the whites, as the opener was bowled for a three-ball duck in the first over of Aussie innings by Indian pace superhead Ishant Sharma on Day 2 of the first Domain Test in Adelaide on Friday (December 7).
Finch, who usually bats at the middle-order in the domestic cricket, was given the opportunity to open against Pakistan and even he also did justice with his debut selection and of course the selectors’ belief by playing some eye-catching knocks and partnerships with Usman Khawaja in the UAE.
Again, the national selectors decide to play the right-hander as an opener with Marcus Harris in the first Test of the four-match Test series in Adelaide, but Finch failed and was bowled after having missed the line and the ball took an inside-edged a booming cover drive off Ishant delivery.
Ricky Ponting, the former Australian captain, and commentator, is not really pleased with the way Finch played shot and lost his wicket out to Ishant in Adelaide and even questioned the national selectors whether he can be a long-term Test opener, considering his struggle against moving the red ball.
He also fears about Australia’s chances in the next Ashes if they continue to open the batting with Finch, as the ball would be moving around a lot in England as well.
Ponting told cricket.com.au, “I think this problem has been created by picking him to open in the UAE. "It's the easiest place in the world to be an opening batsman over there, as we know. And he did reasonably well over there which meant … they had to pick him to open the batting coming back here. What was the long-term objective to open the batting with him over there?”
The cricket pundit continued, “Everyone knows he struggles a little bit against moving the red ball and we have a series here and an Ashes series not too far away, and the ball's going to move around a lot when we're over in England. The shot we saw today is not what a good Test match opener should do the third ball of the innings. The new ball on that wicket was always going to be the hardest time to bat and he went for a hardcover drive. Sometimes that can happen, but he's got a lot of work to do, I think.”
Meanwhile, the legendary batsman is also worried about the current dearth of batting talent in the country, saying that is really “unacceptable”.
On Australia’s first innings show in Adelaide, he noted, “I'm not here to bag anyone about the way things are happening, but you look at some of the shot selection today and it makes you wonder a little bit. I had no worries at all about the group coming in terms of form and those sort of things, it just highlights that they might be a fair way off the mark.”
Ponting signed off by saying, “It's pretty hard to accept that we have 10-15 batsmen in Australian first-class cricket and only a couple of them average over 40. That's unacceptable as far I'm concerned. So you've got to look at the levels of coaching on the way up and what's not happening and try and find ways to improve it. I don't think it matters if we've got left-handers or right-handers there. We had to pick our best players and most of them were lefties.”
(With Cricket Australia Network Inputs)