One of Australia’s greatest captains Ricky Ponting has taken a cheeky dig at his former teammate Glenn McGrath, saying if McGrath was the test captain of Australia, he would have probably bowled himself from one end all day and the other bowlers would have got the opportunity to bowl only from the other end.
As Cricket Australia (CA) has given the test captaincy to Pat Cummins, there has been a growing debate in Australia if the fast bowlers should be the test captains at all.
Ricky Ponting, who was asked this question on a show named The Front Bar, spoke quite highly of the leadership abilities of Pat Cummins, saying that he is probably the only fast bowler to have come from Australia in the last couple of decades who has got it in him to captain a test side.
Ricky Ponting doesn’t think any fast bowler of his era could have been test captain
According to Ponting, some of the fast bowlers that he played with, there was no chance they could have been test captains because they were so intense with their efforts to give 100% for the team that it would have been extremely hard for them to anticipate what could happen in the next over and plan for the other bowlers accordingly.
Talking specially about Glenn McGrath, who was Australia’s most successful bowler under the captaincy of Ponting and was the spearhead of the Australian bowling attack during their ODI World Cup triumphs in 2003 and 2007, Ponting said if, by any chance, McGrath was appointed the test captain, nobody would have been able to take the ball out of his hand.
.@RickyPonting on whether fast bowlers should be captains 🏏#TheFrontBar pic.twitter.com/0ZLSFqsf9S
Advertisement— The Front Bar (@thefrontbar7) November 25, 2021
It has been a general notion around the cricketing world as well that whenever the bowlers captain a cricket team, particularly in the longest format, they either overbowl or underbowl themselves, and it doesn’t really help the team. It remains to be seen how Pat Cummins goes about his job as a test captain, as his very first assignment is the Ashes, which is the biggest assignment of them all for an Australian team.
