Is Ponting done or does he have more to give?

This Image has been all but too frequent for Ricky Ponting over the past two years.

In the wake of the Phillip Hughes selection debate through the media, due attention has turned itself away from the former Test captain to whether the 37 year old still has enough to give the Australian test team this summer against India and the question still remains to whether he is within the top 4-5 batsmen this country has to offer. Turning 37 yesterday, Is Ricky past his time? Is it time to call quits on a career to one of the most prolific run scores in the history of both Test Matches and One Day Internationals?

Whether Ponting can justify that is going to score runs on Boxing Day against the Indians, he cannot hide in the shadows of the statistics that loom against him. The major statistic comes with having batted 31 innings (11% of his career) without a 100 in a Test Match and the major concern with this statistic is that within these 31 innings, Ricky has scored under 25 runs 20 times. This presents the facts that Ponting is in a major career slump and is more than out of form through his last two years of Test cricket. This presents the selection panel with a serious predicament throughout the Indian Test series. Although Ponting has already been picked, his chances are numbered if he fails to score runs and produce a performance.

I for one thought that Ponting would have been the sort of player to retire with the captaincy. I thought for sure that Ponting wouldn’t be the type of player like Tendulkar or Vettori to hand on the Test captaincy and continue to play within the team. For one, Ponting did improve without the burden of captaincy in Sri Lanka but is still not batting with the consistency we have grown to enjoy as Australians over the past 10 years.

Now I am not ruling that Ricky Ponting should immediately be dropped, because for one, he is a certainty for Boxing Day. But the question remains that he is having a “Matthew Hayden” type ending to his career where he has just lost touch with the rest of his career and this needs to be addressed accordingly. 

Obviously, playing a side with the experience and batting firepower of India, we need the experience throughout our young transitional Australian side but if he is not going to perform, the selectors are wasting a Test spot for a promising young batsman such as Ed Cowan or Tom Cooper. Ponting is the only player in the Australian team that can come close to the level of Tendulkar when in form, it is rightly justified that we will need Ponting in the side for the chance that he can pull out a good performance, and this is the risk the selectors have taken.

Looking at most Test players over the age of 37; Tendulkar, Dravid and Kallis...they have had to remain in some sort of form to justify why they are going to be picked over a 23 year old batting prodigy who is dying to score runs. I think that Ponting should retire after the Indian tour, although he has stated he would like to fight England for the Ashes again. I believe for this to happen, he would have to score some serious runs in this series.

Nevertheless, Ricky Ponting has been one of the best test players Australia has ever seen and the standard of how good he has been should never be dropped, regardless of the last years of his career.