Ponting is a great leader: Justin Langer

Aussie great Justin Langer, now the team,s batting coach, believes Ricky is a super captain

Aussie great Justin Langer, now the team,s batting coach, believes Ricky is a super captain

Harbhajan Singh will probably disagree with him vehemently but former Australian opening batsman Justin Langer believes that Ricky Ponting is a top leader.

Langer, now a batting coach with the Test team, yesterday told the media he believes Ponting, a "lightning rod" for criticism after the Ashes defeat earlier this year, remains a "strong and skilled leader".

"It's a very, very hard job. I never did it, not many people did", Langer, who played under Ponting, said. His record speaks for itself. As a batsman, as a leader, he has been outstanding.

Skipper Ricky Ponting plans the next move with spinner Jason Krejza

"To hear some of the rubbish I hear from former players, it must have been an easy game for them."

Langer is particularly impressed with Ponting's influence as a leader, especially on the younger players.

""Whether it's in the fielding practice, the nets, the way he holds himself off the field u2014 every time he speaks, these young guys just listen u2014 they hang on to every word that he says."u00a0

''''''''''

Meanwhile, from the distant Caribbean comes the report that West Indian great Viv Richards would like bouncers to be restored to their former hostility and modern batsmen to throw their so-called "suits of armour" in the rubbish bin.

Richards who, like our own Sunil Gavaskar, refused to wear a helmet in his playing days (however, Gavaskar did bat with a ridiculous skull cap towards the end of his career) is quoted as saying: "There are individuals out there who use the body protection as a form of staying power to go on as long as possible.

"That's the worst way anybody can be thinking, that you should cover yourself in a suit of armour, to make yourself brave, or to enable you to hook when you never hooked in your life just because you've got a helmet on.

"That's rubbish. Even though they say cricket is a gentleman's game. It's a man's game," Richards said.