Former Australian captain turned coach Ricky Ponting has opined on the tough selection calls Australia will face in the upcoming Ashes series as well. The focus will be on Australia from November 21 for the five-match Ashes series against England, which will play an important role in shaping the ICC World Test Championship standings as well.
“We are in a really interesting little phase right now with the talk about the selections for this first Test match because it was well planned by Cricket Australia to have four Sheffield Shield games leading into the first Test,” Ponting said. “Two of those games have been played already. Some guys have been standouts, other guys that are in the reckoning haven’t really taken their opportunity to the maximum just yet. We know Sam Konstas has been the incumbent as he played the last series in the West Indies, but he’s one that probably hasn’t capitalised as much as he would have liked in those first two (domestic) games.”
“These players have still got probably four innings to go before that Test team has to get picked, and we’ll have a bit of a clearer picture then. Marnus Labuschagne is the obvious one. Marnus, at his absolute best, is in Australia’s best team every day of the week,” he further added.
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“But he hasn’t been able to find his best form over the last couple of years. And it looks like now, back at the state level, he’s starting to find it again. It is certainly starting to look that way, and he is a lot more confident in scoring. I think he’s made four centuries in his last six innings, so he’s going well, even though there is still a long, long way out, ” Ponting shared.
Meanwhile, Cameron Green is expected to line up in Perth (fitness pending), and Ricky Ponting thinks fellow all-rounder Beau Webster should also be added, provided he can feature at the domestic level before the first Test. However, Webster has been battling an ankle issue, but has proven invaluable for Australia since debuting last summer as well.
“Cameron Green is the other (unknown) one right now,” Ponting said. “He’s actually pulled out of this one-day series (against India) with some stiffness in his side. Now we know that he hasn’t bowled for a long time. And if he bowls or if he doesn’t bowl, it could have a big impact on the way that the Australian batting lines up for the first Test. If he’s 100 per cent fit and ready to bowl properly in Perth, then they might think about the batting order being slightly different.”
“Do they need Webster then at No.6, or has Webster done enough to keep himself in the side anyway. I’d like to think that he has, even if Green is bowling, he’ll probably be on limited workload anyway, so I think Webster deserves to be in the side. So then it comes down to whether they want to back in the youth of Konstas at the start of a national series, or if the sheer weight of runs for Marnus is going to get him back into the team. If it does, I think he’ll be in the team as an opening batter,” Ricky Ponting concluded.
