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Will he won't he: Aus skipper Ricky Ponting | AUSTRALIA skipper Ricky Ponting flies into India next week with a batting average of 58.37 and a career Test-run tally of 10,099 figures that do justice to his world's premier batsman billing.
But what about his stats in Test matches on Indian soil? Sample this: Tests 8, Runs 172, Highest: 60, Average: 12.28.
Ponting has scored heavily in all Test-playing countries, but when it comes to India, his report card is dunce-like. He is not the only batsman to have a problem in a particular country. Doug Walters, a fellow aggressive batsman was a successful player in most venues in world cricket, but when it came to England, he just couldn't hit the high notes. In four Test tours there, Walters, one of the all-time great batsmen, couldn't reach the three-figure mark.
Then
His captain Ian Chappell was forced to leave him out of the playing XI in the final Test of the 1972 Ashes and he did it with a heavy heart. It was the first time that an Australian Test playing XI did not include a New South Wales player.
Chappell watched most of Ponting's eight Tests in India from 1996 to 2004 in his role as commentator and could come up with an explanation to Ponting's foibles on Indian pitches.
"Playing good spinners has always been Ponting's Achilles heel. He tends to push out at the ball when defending rather than letting the ball come to him. Good players of spin reach out to smother the spin in attack but in defence let the ball come to them," Chappell told
MiD DAY from Sydney.
Probably, Ponting should have a chat with the former captain, for he knows what it takes to succeed in India and has watched Ponting as a young gun at the Australian Cricket Academy. There's a story about Chappell having one look at Ponting when the Australian Cricket Academy was based in Adelaide and was convinced that the Tasmanian would play for his country.
Survival
"The big thing in India is to find a way to survive the first 10 minutes when you come in against good spinners; safely negotiating that period where you can't see where your next run is coming from," said Chappell, whose 324 runs in the 1969-70 series in India was one of the reasons why his captain Bill Lawry called him the best batsman in the world then.
Only once out of his 14 innings in India has Ponting being dismissed by a paceman Venkatesh Prasad in the one-off Test in 1996. Harbhajan has a well-established reason to consider the feisty Aussie as his bunny with five Ponting dismissals in the three-Test series in 2000-01. In the last series Down Under, the offie dismissed him in both the innings of the infamous Sydney Test.
Sameer Dighe, who had Ponting stumped in the 2001 Chennai Test off Harbhajan for the Australian to complete a hat-trick of ducks in the series, remembered the thrill of having a hand in the dismissal. "Harbhajan was simply unplayable. They just couldn't pick his line and length and I remember Ponting being foxed by a straighter one and stepping out," Dighe said, only to stress that Ponting was a top-drawer player and would be looking to make amends.
Asked if the India tour is Ponting's biggest test as a batsman, Chappell said: "He has such pride in his performance I'm sure he'll see India as a huge challenge. He won't want to finish his career without one good away series against a team that has seriously challenged Australia more than any other side in the last decade."
First thing that the skipper would look to do is get his eye in. Ponting is an instinctive player, but he will have to play the waiting game to an extent.
"Because," said Chappell, "Ponting has been dismissed for so many low scores, he hasn't found a method that will allow him to survive this danger period. Also, Ponting's desire to dictate gets him into a bit of trouble in India. He hasn't displayed the patience required at the start of an innings when you are facing good spinners in India."
The 2004-05 side became only the first Australian team since 1969-70 to win a Test series in India. Chappell has always attributed that win to the team's ability to play top quality spinners. Thrice in five Tests, they could muster more than 335 in their first innings against a spin attack comprising Bishan Singh Bedi, S Venkataraghavan and Erapalli Prasanna.
Toughest challenge
"Adjusting to playing good spin bowling in India is the toughest challenge facing an Australian batsman," said Chappell, whose top scores in that series were 138 in Delhi and 99 in Kolkata. "The important things in this regard are finding a survival method watching the ball off the pitch really closely, working out what shots you can and can't play and learning that you have a fraction of a second longer to play the ball off the pitch when compared to Australia.
"When you realise this, you can play balls off the back foot that you would have to play off the front foot in Australia and then you find that you can actually score off some of those shots rather than just defend. Once those lessons are learned playing even the best spinners in India becomes an enjoyable challenge rather than a mind-breaking chore."
It's been four years since Ponting played a Test in India. A thumb injury caused him to figure only in the fourth and final Test of the 2004-05 series. Doubtless, he is a smarter player now. But there's still something to learn. Even after 10,000 plus runs as Ponting will discover. Soon.
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