Ricky Ponting has given up the
Australian captaincy and now it
seems he is bidding farewell to
the slips cordon. Continuing troubles with the
finger Ponting fractured during
last summer's Ashes series mean
he will not be fielding in the slips
on the tour of Sri Lanka. The little finger on Ponting's left
hand remains an unpleasant
sight, having been operated on
twice and knocked around
numerous times in the field
during the World Cup campaign that brought his Australian
captaincy tenure to an end. While the digit has benefited
from Ponting's first extended
holiday for some years, its
relative tenderness will mean the
new captain Michael Clarke will
need to look elsewhere for a second slip fielder, where Ponting
has traditionally stood in Tests
ever since the spot was vacated
by Mark Waugh in 2002. "Maybe down the track [I will
field in the slips again]," Ponting
told ABC Radio. "It's going to be a
confidence thing for me as well, I
need to know that I can move
quickly for balls low to my left and not worry about copping a
nasty one on the end of the
finger again. "I won't start there in the one
dayers we've got coming up, but
if I'm confident and I'm not
getting any pain in the finger,
and the captain thinks I'm one of
the best slip fielders we've got, then I could be back in there one
day. "I had two screws and a wire put
in it before the World Cup, just
to get through and be able to
play in that tournament. I got
through fine batting in the World
Cup, fielding was a bit of an issue, every time I copped a bit
of a knock on it, it was almost
like I was re-breaking it again, so
I went back home and had the
screws and the wire out. "It's a lot better now, I've got a
lot less pain in every movement
than I had before, and certainly
the batting I've done in the last
couple of months I haven't
noticed it at all so that's a really good sign." Looking ahead to Australia's
demanding schedule over the
next 12 months, Ponting said it
was important that the team
took small steps towards
improvement, concentrating on lifting itself to No. 4 in the ICC's
Test rankings before looking any
further. "I think the most important thing
for us right now is we don't
necessarily talk about getting
back to the No. 1 ranking,
because we've got to get to No.
4 first, then three, two and one," Ponting said. "So we'll take
small steps at the start, I think
we've got enough quality players
around the group for us to get
back to No. 4 pretty quickly. "We learned some lessons last
year on disciplined Test match
cricket, I think England were
more disciplined than us and
played better Test match cricket
than us, and if we can learn from the mistakes that were
made last year, that'll go a long
way to helping us become a
better cricket team this year." While Ponting acknowledged the
loss of Simon Katich, he argued
the future of the Australian
team was promising, particularly
given a developing battery of
fast bowlers from which to choose. "A notable out with Simon Katich
not being in the contract list, so
you'd think Phil Hughes will slot
into that spot," he said. "I'm
looking forward to working more
with him on his game and helping him develop into a very good
international cricketer which I
think he can be. With Usman
Khawaja around the group as
well I think he's someone who's
got that real Test match technique that you can build a
player around, which is a really
good sign for us, that's what we
need as a batting group. "The fast bowling stocks around
Australia at the moment, if you
look at our young guys, are
probably as good as they've
been since I've been playing the
game. Pat Cummins, [Josh] Hazlewood, [Mitchell] Starc,
[James] Pattinson, Ryan Harris is
still relatively young in
international cricket but at his
best is as good as anyone, Peter
Siddle, [Mitchell] Johnson, we've got a real good group there at
the moment, and we've got to
nurture them, keep bringing
them on. But you read those
names out and you think there's
enough ability there for us to win our fair share of games." Ponting and Clarke will depart
for Sri Lanka on Thursday as
part of the limited overs
component of the squad. The
Twenty20 players are in Colombo
ahead of two matches against the hosts from Saturday.
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