How often is it that when a batsman missed a ball, he quickly looks at the pitch? Can you blame a skipper then for doing something similar?
Apparently skipper Ricky Ponting’s jibes that the pitch at the WACA, Perth where South Africa were successfully in chasing down Australia’s 414 was more like Adelaide has not necessarily met with more nods.
Ponting complained that the pitch at WACA was slow and placid and earned the wrath of Graeme Wood, the WACA chief executive, and the WACA curator Cameron Sutherland.
Wood slammed Ponting saying, “I didn’t see any complaints in the Ashes Test on the fifth day when Australia won and regained the Ashes (in Perth two years ago). When you are 7-162 in the second innings I don’t think you can point fingers at the wicket. One side got 20 wickets, one side didn’t. The last time I did look at the laws it’s a five-day game.” He also added that there would have been no complaints had Australia not ended up on the losing side.
Another man who gave the pitch the thumbs up was the Western Australia coach Tom Moody himself who stated, “If a Test goes nearly a total of all five days and you get a result you’d have to give 10 out of 10 to the wicket…It wasn’t what we all hoped was an extremely quick WACA wicket but still it was an excellent Test wicket.”
Sutherland though capped off summarily the popular opinion, “I’ve come out and said it didn’t have as much pace as I would have liked but as far as a cricket wicket, you go anywhere else bar the WACA and they would say it’s one outstanding wicket in world cricket. To compare it to Adelaide I think is drawing a bit of a short bow.”
Ponting is certainly running out of support.
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The Many Shades of the Australian Skipper: Ponting in Pictures!
