Finch can lead Australia from top, says Ponting

AUSTRALIAN cricket legend Ricky Ponting backed late blooming batsman Aaron Finch to open for the Test team in Pakistan and said he expected the new-look outfit to not only do well, but win the two-match series.

“I was a bit critical last week of some of the selections, but let’s just hope whatever team they put on the park will be very competitive, and I’d like to think they would be,” Ponting said.

“I’d like to think they could win the series to be honest.”

Finch was a surprise call-up for the series in the United Arab Emirates, having formed a reputation as a short-form specialist.

The 31-year-old masterblaster has played 135 times for his country in the one-day and Twenty20 formats, earning a reputation as one of the fastest-scoring batsmen.

But the burly right-hander has never played a Test.

Ponting’s backing will be a big boost for Finch as the clock ticks down to the first Test, which starts on October 7. MEANWHILE, continued pot shots at the culture of the Australian cricket team does not sit well with the former captain, who believes the “ugly Aussies” tag does not apply to the players he knows.

Ponting conceded there had always been a few incidents “here and there” with the national outfit.

But he believed the critics were piling in on the back of the ball-tampering scandal in South Africa.

This week Cricket Australia has asked for details on claims from English allrounder Moeen Ali, made in his autobiography, that he was called “Osama” by an Australian player during his Ashes debut in 2015.

It is unlikely to progress beyond the book claim because Ali did not make an official complaint at the time and does not want to now. The player he accused of the racial slur denied it then and now.

Ponting, who captained Australia in 77 Tests and 230 one day internationals and was entrenched with the one-day outfit during June’s ODI series against England as an assistant coach, was adamant the team culture was “very strong”.

“A lot of stuff’s been made about the culture around the team on the back of the one issue in South Africa. There wasn’t anything spoken about the culture of the team before that, really,” he said yesterday.

“Yes, there might have been a few little occasions where things got out of hand and a little over the top.

“But you can do everything right for 10 years and have one little incident and it’s back to the ugly Aussies.

“Australian cricket has been fighting that label for 30 or 40 years.

“I’ve been around the team a fair bit since the Australian summer last year with the T20 triangular series (in New Zealand) and the five one-dayers in England. The culture of the Australian cricket team has always been very, very good and very strong.”

Ponting said under new coach Justin Langer and captain Tim Paine there would be no occasion for the “ugly Aussies” tag to be associated with the national team.

“I can guarantee you with Justin being in control and the people he will have around him and Tim Paine being captain, things will be vastly different,” he said.