Management would have dropped Ponting, says Michael Clarke
Oct 19, 2016 at 11:32 AM
Australian team management was about to drop former captain Ricky Ponting if he had not retired from international cricket in 2012 in Perth against South Africa. Former Australian skipper Michael Clarke has revealed it in his autobiography ‘My Story’.
In his last Test at the WACA in Perth from November 29 to December 3, 2012 vs South Africa, Ponting scored 4 and 8 respectively in both the innings. Clarke says that how Ponting struggled with former national selector John Inverarity’s schoolmasterly conversational style.
It is known that Ponting emailed Mickey Arthur and said, ““I have technical deficiencies and I am not the player I used to be”. The selectors had decided to drop Ponting who was struggling after low scores in the first two home Tests against the Proteas.
“John confides that the other selectors have made their minds up that Perth will be Ricky’s last Test match, whether he scores nought or a hundred, ” former Australian skipper says in his book. In his autobiography ‘Ponting: At the Close of Play’ which released in 2013, Ponting had written about his oscillating relationship with Clarke and a feeling that he wasn’t supported by Clarke’s best as his deputy.
However, three years down the line, Clarke agrees to his then skipper and concedes he should not have been made vice-captain in the first place.
“In his autobiography, Ricky wrote that he was ‘disappointed with some of the things I did as vice-captain’. He didn’t accuse me of being treacherous or disruptive but said I was reluctant to get involved in planning meetings or daily debriefs and take on a leadership role. When my private life was turbulent, he said, I would go into my shell. He was right. I was not a good vice-captain to him,” Clarke writes in his book.