Ricky Thomas Ponting

[whufc]

I kind of know how RickY feels. Having the name Ben and not been gifted with great height, i was always little Benny. Being involved in many different sporting clubs as a youngster everyone knew me as Benny (to the point if someone called me Ben / Benjamin i wouldn't react)

Im now 26 and you guessed it, to everyone i know im still BennY.

[dedja]

I kind of know how RickY feels. Having the name Ben and not been gifted with great height, i was always little Benny. Being involved in many different sporting clubs as a youngster everyone knew me as Benny (to the point if someone called me Ben / Benjamin i wouldn't react)

Im now 26 and you guessed it, to everyone i know im still BennY.

Could have been worse mate ... there's a bloke who was Prime Minsiter for 12 years and is still known as little Johnny.

[dedja]

Ponting, as others have said, a world class batsman, possibly the best Australian batsman I've seen. I've always struggled with the Ponting v Greg Chappell argument, Ponting's record slightly superior but G.Chappell played at a time when the depth of world bowling was the best ever. Ponting is certainly the best puller of the ball forward of square I have seen. Backward of square he tends to loft the ball a little but still scores plenty of runs there.

As a captain, he's okay at setting fields for bowlers and against certain batsmen, but his use of bowler is poor. IMHO, he fails repeatedly at using the correct bowler for a given situation. He also lacks the ability for the instinctive that Taylor and I.Chappell had. His gambles appear to be based more on hunches than educated assessment. Tactically brittle, as seen by his decision to send England into bat in the 2nd Test of the 2005 Ashes. With McGrath not playing, Australia 1-0 in the series, I could never imagine previous Aussie leaders making that choice.

In his defence, I'd have to say no Australian captain in the history of the game has received such poor treatment by the media which possibly accounts for his demeanour. Some articles written about him by idiots like Roebuck were disgraceful.

That's a pretty fair assessment AH ... one extra thing I think he brings to the table as captain is the ability to lift the team by his performances and the respect he has amongst the players. On the other side, I've mentioned before that maybe he's too close to some players which affects his judgement at times.

[MAY-Z]

Ponting, as others have said, a world class batsman, possibly the best Australian batsman I've seen. I've always struggled with the Ponting v Greg Chappell argument, Ponting's record slightly superior but G.Chappell played at a time when the depth of world bowling was the best ever. Ponting is certainly the best puller of the ball forward of square I have seen. Backward of square he tends to loft the ball a little but still scores plenty of runs there.

As a captain, he's okay at setting fields for bowlers and against certain batsmen, but his use of bowler is poor. IMHO, he fails repeatedly at using the correct bowler for a given situation. He also lacks the ability for the instinctive that Taylor and I.Chappell had. His gambles appear to be based more on hunches than educated assessment. Tactically brittle, as seen by his decision to send England into bat in the 2nd Test of the 2005 Ashes. With McGrath not playing, Australia 1-0 in the series, I could never imagine previous Aussie leaders making that choice.

In his defence, I'd have to say no Australian captain in the history of the game has received such poor treatment by the media which possibly accounts for his demeanour. Some articles written about him by idiots like Roebuck were disgraceful.

That's a pretty fair assessment AH ... one extra thing I think he brings to the table as captain is the ability to lift the team by his performances and the respect he has amongst the players. On the other side, I've mentioned before that maybe he's too close to some players which affects his judgement at times.

an interesting book to read is david fultons book about ashes captains from the last 30 years or so. the poorest captains in terms of their captaincy ability are those who lead via their perfomances (ie ponting, gooch etc). an interesting quote by michael vaughan was that he was happy to lose around 15% of his form because he felt he could lift every other member of the team by 10% through man-management and tactical abilitly. without looking it up i think trescothick, strauss, pitersen, bell, flintoff, harmison, jones, hoggard etc alll performed better when vaughan was captain than the rest of their career

as for the media this was brought on by ponting himself and his management of the team and the media

[rogernumber10]

In his defence, I'd have to say no Australian captain in the history of the game has received such poor treatment by the media which possibly accounts for his demeanour. Some articles written about him by idiots like Roebuck were disgraceful.

Agreed. When Roebuck then admitted a couple of days later he only wrote the 'sack Ricky' story to stir the pot, and didn't actually believe it, that was a total disgrace.

[Adelaide Hawk]

an interesting book to read is david fultons book about ashes captains from the last 30 years or so. the poorest captains in terms of their captaincy ability are those who lead via their perfomances (ie ponting, gooch etc). an interesting quote by michael vaughan was that he was happy to lose around 15% of his form because he felt he could lift every other member of the team by 10% through man-management and tactical abilitly. without looking it up i think trescothick, strauss, pitersen, bell, flintoff, harmison, jones, hoggard etc alll performed better when vaughan was captain than the rest of their career

I realise it was just over 30 years ago, but Ian Chappell flies against that theory. As a player only, he averaged just over 37, but as a captain he averaged 50. Also, Richie Benaud's bowling performances improved as a captain. Generally though, David Fulton's observations are correct.

[Dogwatcher]

In his defence, I'd have to say no Australian captain in the history of the game has received such poor treatment by the media which possibly accounts for his demeanour. Some articles written about him by idiots like Roebuck were disgraceful.

Agreed. When Roebuck then admitted a couple of days later he only wrote the 'sack Ricky' story to stir the pot, and didn't actually believe it, that was a total disgrace.

When your ego allows you to write stories like that. That's when you should stop.

[gadj1976]

In his defence, I'd have to say no Australian captain in the history of the game has received such poor treatment by the media which possibly accounts for his demeanour. Some articles written about him by idiots like Roebuck were disgraceful.

Agreed. When Roebuck then admitted a couple of days later he only wrote the 'sack Ricky' story to stir the pot, and didn't actually believe it, that was a total disgrace.

That's not journalism! That's something I'd expect to hear (ad nauseum) on morning gossip shows FFS. Terrible. I expect better from these so called professionals. Gee, they wonder why we don't respect their opinions.

[spell_check]

Peter Roebuck is anti-Aussie full stop. For whatever reason, the camera always seems to be on the captains every ball when something goes wrong or a close call. As for names, it's better that you have a name that's unmistakeable for a male name if you are male, I say. Ricky and Benny are two such names.

[Gozu]

I never knew Roebuck admitted he was just stirring the pot with that article. I'm not right up with the supposed big name cricket writers but who's the guy that goes on about "leather flingers" and crap like that?