Former Australia captain Ricky Ponting has revealed a loophole in the Australian squad. He believes that the lower-order ‘finisher’ role remains an issue for Australia as they don’t have many experienced players for that role as well. In a recent interview with cricket.com.au, the world cup winning Australia skipper shared Australia lacks a “finisher” in the mould of former India captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni or all-rounder Hardik Pandya as well.
“Dhoni has been in that one spot his whole career, and no wonder he’s so good at it. Hardik Pandya and Kieron Pollard are similar – these guys continually win games of cricket for their country, and in the IPL, they’re used to going in batting at those spots,” he shared.
Ricky Ponting, who is also the coach of Delhi Capitals in the Indian Premier League (IPL), explained that one of the reasons for Australia not having a good “finisher” was that all of the best batsmen usually bat in the top of the order in the Big Bash League (BBL) as well.
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“So you’ve actually got no one that’s consistently batting in that area. That’s what we “ve got to find,” said the 46-year-old legendary batsman. Is it going to be (Glenn) Maxwell and Mitchell Marsh that are going to finish the games, is it going to be (Marcus) Stoinis? I think that’s the area that they’re more worried about,” Ponting added.
However, Marcus Stoinis and Glenn Maxwell have tested success while batting in the middle order. Meanwhile, Stoinis did well lowe down the order under Ponting’s guidance while playing for the Delhi Capitals.
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“I saw Stoinis at Delhi last year; he has opened the last few years of BBL and done an excellent job for the Melbourne Stars, but I needed someone that could finish games for us, and he won two or three games off his own bat. So, it’s there – but they will get better at it the more they do it. How they find a way for these guys to do it more, I “m not sure,” concluded Ricky Ponting.
