Former Australian captain Ricky Ponting has joined in on the debate of whether Will Pucovski or Joe Burns should open alongside David Warner in the upcoming Test series against India.
Ponting has put his captain's brain to work and believes that Joe Burns should get a longer run as he has done nothing wrong to be left out of the squad. The 45-year-old explained his strategy of extracting the best out of the players in his team.
Ricky Ponting was quoted by cricket.com.au as saying, "I know when I was captain, I had a pretty strong philosophy with the selectors that once you're in my team, I wanted to do everything I could to make sure you stayed there. I didn't want to be making changes and I always felt it was my responsibility as captain to get the absolute best out of the players I had in my team."
"I think it gives individuals a bit more confidence to go out and play a certain way and not be scared about their position in the line-up. That adds a lot around the group," he added.
Ponting also recalled that he had told Australian coach Justin Langer to give Joe Burns a long rope.
"Burns hasn't done much wrong. If you go back to last summer, he played really well in the first Test in Brisbane and I remember saying then to lock him in and give him a good go at it for a while," he said.
(With inputs from cricket.com.au)
