Ricky Ponting Sacked From ODI Team

Ricky Ponting has been dropped from the Australia ODI squad for the next two games in the CB series. Ponting, who has had a rather poor run of form in the shorter format of the game, went into the series knowing that the axe was hanging on him but five successive failures in the tournament ended his chances of prolonging his ODI career.

In the five games in questions, Ponting scored 2, 1, 6, 2 and 7, which meant that it was the first time ever in his career that he had five successive single-digit scores in this format. Coming into the series, he had scores of 63, 10 and 11 but since the end of the World Cup last year, Ponting has scored 416 runs at an average of less than 30.

Earlier, Ponting was in doubt about his place in the Test team as well, but came back strongly in the four-match Test series with three fifties, a century and a double-century to his name. However, given his axing and the fact that the chairman of selectors, John Inverarity has already said that they had decided to move on from Ponting in this format, it remains to be seen whether the former captain will continue to play only one format of the game.

Inverarity said in a media conference, “The team will not seem the same without him, but moving on from the omission of players who have been outstanding over a long period of time is the nature of elite sport. Ricky's record speaks for itself. He is one of the truly great performers in the history of Australian ODI cricket, with his reputation enhanced further by him captaining Australia to two World Cup victories.”

Clarke is back into the squad to lead the team after sitting out of two games because of an injury. The rest of the side remains the same.