Two time World Cup winning captain Ricky Ponting has backed out of form Australian all-rounder Glenn Maxwell to come to his terms in the remaining matches of BBL 04 and the Carlton-Mid ODI Tri-Series featuring India and England, that take place before the World Cup 2015.
Maxwell had a below-par Carlton-Mid ODI series against South Africa this November and has also failed to perform in the first three matches of BBL 04 for Melbourne Stars. But Ponting feels that Maxwell possesses the same raw ability and x-factor of Andrew Symonds that can help Australia win the World Cup.
During the SEN’s Summer Breakfast program, Ponting was quoted in saying:
“I think expectation is the thing that’s weighing him down a little bit at the moment. As I try to say to him, that’s just down to the way he plays his cricket.
“He’s got so much talent … the ability to do some unbelievably freakish things. He’s got to find a way within himself to become a consistent cricketer for the Stars and Victoria and hopefully for Australia.
“The one thing we can’t forget with some of these guys that are relatively new to international cricket is one, they haven’t been in the spotlight for that long before and two, they haven’t played as much cricket back-to-back and consecutively as some of these guys are doing right now.
“And someone like Glenn, he’s the sort of guy who needs some time away and needs to have other vices in his life, rather than just sitting back and thinking about cricket 24/7.
“It’s a tough adjustment period for some of these guys but we hope he (Maxwell) can come through the other end of it and make sure he’s playing well leading into that World Cup, because he’s the sort of player, like we had with someone like Andrew Symonds in 2003, that could win a World Cup for Australia.”
Ponting also named Ashton Agar, Jason Behrendorff and Gurinder Sandhu as potential smokies for Australia’s 15-men squad for World Cup 2015 and said that their impressive domestic form can earn them a place in the final squad.
He said:
“They’re a couple of guys I think that will definitely be smokies. Jason Behrendorff from the Perth Scorchers has been a standout for me so far in the Big Bash and his domestic record is also good.
“And Gurinder Sandhu is the other one. I think he’s a terrific short form bowler. He bowls well at the death in T20 games which is probably an area that Australia haven’t really ever excelled in the limited-overs game.
“I would actually throw Ashton Agar’s name in there as a bit of a smokey. I haven’t talked much about this before but I was just looking and thinking about what they might do with a spinner for the World Cup, and we know that Agar’s a very handy lower batsman and a good fielder as well.
“I think he’s someone who could slot into a World Cup one-day side really nicely.”
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