Pitch it short to put Ponting in a hole, says Gayle

Windies skipper Chris Gayle urges opposition teams to attack Ricky Ponting Chris Gayle the man with the rock star looks who brilliantly led the West Indies from the front against Australia and sparked his dispirited sides revival despite injuries to important players says hes proud of the way his team stood up to be countedIn his syndicated column this morning Gayle writes We showed a lot of guts and determination and who knows what would have happened if we had not had injuries at crucial moments in the seriesAustralia skipper Ricky Ponting is struck on the elbow by a short delivery from Kemar Roach of the West Indies during Day One of the third Test in Perth on December 16 Picgetty imagesMaybe having Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Adrian Barath would have changed the result in PerthBut having said that the guys who stepped up to the plate which is a great sign for West Indies cricketGayle man of the match at Perth and man of the series goes on to say that his bowlers exposed Ricky Pontings problems against the short ballOur plan to bowl short at him worked really well and I think they are tactics other teams can use with a lot of success against himRicky is a person who will always hook and pull those are some of his favourite shots but they can also be his major weakness If you have a bowler with a bit of pace I think you can give him some real troubleOther teams should study the way Kemar Roach bowled to him Gayle writesHe just tried to hustle him bowled at his body and get him to hook or pull and Ricky definitely looked very uncomfortable The plans we came up werent from watching videos of Ricky they were just my gut instinctHaving said that it will be a huge loss if Ricky is out of the Boxing Day Test against PakistanIf he is missing it could play a big part in the Test You never know what might happen Pakistan might just be a chancePonting has slipped down the ICC rankings to 14th after his disappointing 23 retired hurt and two in the Perth Test Gautam Gambhir leads the Test batting table with Sri Lankans Mahela Jayawerdene No 2 and Kumar Sangakkara No 3 Australian vicecaptain Michael Clarke is at No 6 India head the ICC Test rankings with 124 points followed by South Africa 122 Australia 116 Sri Lanka 115 England 105 Pakistan 83 New Zealand 81 West Indies 77 and Bangladesh 13Reacting to the ugly incidents that marred the recentlyconcluded series Pakistan fast bowler and manager of the touring team Waqar Younis says fans want to see aggressive cricket so long as it is not dirtySaying his team were here to play positive cricket Waqar said he enjoyed seeing things heat up during the third Test at PerthPak talkIn a way it is nice to see because you want to see aggressive cricket and you want to see positive cricket and people wanting to win the gameAs long as it is not dirty that is what you want to see I dont mind our boys getting out there and taking the other teams onThrowing down the gauntlet Pakistani spin bowler Saeed Ajmal has said that having a doosra in an off spinners bag of tricks is essential to survive in international cricket these days and that Australian bowlers are just off spinnersHe said Shane Warne the legend had lots of variety But these days the Australian spinners are just off spinners and its not like they are taking five and six wickets every match maybe twoAjmal the teams third string spinner who may not get a chance to play in a Test in the forthcoming series added that the Australian batsmen would struggle against the doosraMeanwhile there has been considerable speculation that Pakistaniborn opening batsman Usman Khawaja who scored an impressive 107 for New South Wales in the ongoing Sheffield Shield match against Victoria may be called in as possible cover for the injured Ponting for the Melbourne Test although Phil Hughes is front runnerHughes a ward of Indianborn Neil DCosta who is currently coaching at the Nagpur cricket academy is widely considered a longterm prospect as Test openerSydneydomiciled 23year Khawaja has scored two Sheffield Shield centuries in the past two weeks and aggregates 485 this season at an impressive average of 60However some writers argue that Khawaja who could be the first Pakistaniborn to wear the baggy green should not be rushed into Test cricket