The former Australian captain Ricky Ponting slammed India’s team selection for the World Test Championship (WTC) final as the Indian team management went with 4 fast bowlers and only one spinner on an Oval pitch, which despite looking green turned out to be good for batting.
Ricky Ponting was part of the commentary panel on the global feed of the WTC final and he insisted that the selection that India made was based on the probabilities of what the pitch could do on the first day of the game and they didn’t really think about the whole duration of the game.
Ricky Ponting reckons India should have picked Ravichandran Ashwin
Ponting was of the opinion that India should have gone with Ravichandran Ashwin as one of their bowlers because the Oval pitch might have been looking green to start with, but it was always going to flatten out after a couple of sessions. So while the fast bowlers were going to play a role, the spinners will come into the game as well in the latter phases of the test match.
Despite playing 4 fast bowlers, India failed to make much of an impact and although Australia were 3 down for less than 100, they finished the first day of the game with over 300 runs and still 3 wickets down. While Travis Head scored a memorable hundred, Steve Smith batted in his usual composed manner and he was closing in on a hundred as well, as the first day came to a close.
According to Ricky Ponting, although there wasn’t much in the pitch for the spinners on day 1 and it became a batting track after first couple of sessions, Ashwin might still have found a way to not only curb the flow of runs, but get a wicket or two as well, which would have kept the game even stevens.
