14 October 2010

Difficult to blame Warne for his criticism of Ponting's captaincy

I've got every sympathy with Shane Warne's tweeted complaints about Ricky Ponting's fields yesterday. I didn't watch it ball by ball but watching an hour of highlights there were some crazy fields set to all the bowlers (i.e. no slips early on when you need 10 wickets?), but the fields for Hauritz really did take the biscuit. How can you possibly have no saving one fielders on the off side?

Ponting's defence? Apparently all the fields Hauritz bowled to were requested by Hauritz himself. That's a complete non-defence - if that's the case then there's little point having a captain Ricky....you're meant to over-rule your bowlers as necessary because you're (in theory) tactically superior!

I do have a tinge of sympathy for Ponting because how anyone is meant to set fields to bowlers like Johnson bowling both sides of the wicket, I'm not quite sure. But there is certainly a lot he could do to help himself - sensible fields and bowling your best bowler (Hilfenhaus) for more than 7 overs might help a bit....

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