Ponting wants best for T20

Ricky Ponting’s introduction into the Australian coaching set-up has coincided with the country winning three consecutive Twenty20 matches for the first time since 2014.

But if Cricket Australia is going to hold onto the IPLwinning coach, they need to give him the best possible chance of succeeding.

Ponting is serving as Darren Lehmann’s assistant coach in the current tri-series, and confirmed last month that he was

talking with CA about taking over the T20 team full-time before the next World Twenty20 in 2020. But he has conditions.

Namely, he would like to see more continuity in the side, for the country’s best quicks to be more frequently involved and for Australia’s top players to be playing regular Twenty20.

“These are all the things that I’ve spelled out to Cricket Australia for me to get more involved down the track,” Ponting said ahead of tonight’s TriSeries clash against England.

“Being able to prioritise the game and give the captain and the players a chance to get an extended run at playing for their country.

“And the captain to learn about what the strengths and weaknesses of certain players are in the line-up.”

Ponting was also adamant that Australia’s best players needed to be playing more T20 if the country was going to be a genuine force in the format.

“If you think about it, our very best players in Australia don’t play very much T20 cricket at all,” he said.

“The national boys are always away when the Big Bash is on. There’s probably four or five guys that play the entire IPL tournament, no more than that. So we’re actually starved of the T20 game

“In an ideal world it would be nice to put out your strongest team more often than not, but I know there’s challenges with that. Until we start doing that I don’t think we’re going to improve too much.”

Australia sits 15 points behind world No.1 Pakistan on the ICC’s T20 rankings and the World Twenty20 remains the one major trophy the side has never won. By contrast they sit second on the ICC’s Test rankings and have won the 50-overs World Cup five times.

It’s a disparity Ponting puts down to a lack of consistency in the make-up of the T20 team and its leadership group.

Four different men have captained Australia since the start of 2016 and 40 players have been used in 19 matches.

“We look back through the last five or six years we haven’t had the same captain for long periods,” Ponting said.

“We very rarely get the best bowling attack in the group for a long period of time because there’s other series and tournaments that are probably taking precedence over T20 cricket.”