Ponting closes his ODI innings, focuses on Tests and Ashes

SYDNEY: Ricky Ponting, Australia’s most successful one-day cricketer, acknowledged today that his limited-overs international career was over but said he wanted to continue in Test cricket and hoped to play in the 2013 Ashes.

Don Bradman remains Australia’s greatest ever cricketer, but Ponting is without peer in the 50over game, having scored 13 704 runs in 375 matches at an average of 42. He won three World Cups in his 17-year career, two as captain.

The end for the second-most prolific batsman of all time in limited-overs internationals (India’s Sachin Tendulkar is number one) was signalled when he was dropped from the Australia team yesterday after making 18 runs in five games in the ongoing TriSeries against India and Sri Lanka.

Ponting said he had spoken to chairman of selectors John Inverarity, who told him that he was not in the plans for the future direction of the team in the lead-up to the 2015 World Cup.

“It’s a bit hard to say

I’ve retired, given that I’ve been dropped, but I don’t expect to play one-day international cricket any more and I’m sure the selectors don’t expect to pick me either. I’ve been dropped, which is disappointing but I accept that. My performances over the last five games haven’t warranted me being there.”

Ponting, 37, said the decision to drop him had come “out of the blue”, adding that he wanted to continue playing Test matches, a format in which he’s scored 13 200 runs in 162 matches at an average of 53.

“This is closure on my one-day international career, but it’s certainly not closure on my Test career,” said Ponting, who retired from Twenty20s in 2009. “I just love the game and I just love every opportunity I have to play for my country.”

Ponting, who relinquished the captaincy of the Test and one-day teams last March, was under pressure for his place in the Test team at the end of last year, but responded with 544 runs at an average of 108 as the hosts whitewashed India 4-0. “I think I proved to a lot of people… that I can still play great cricket and be as good as anybody on the field.”

Australia play England in back-to-back Ashes series in 2013/14 and Ponting, who has captained his country to defeats in three of the last four series, said he’d love the chance to earn redemption. “It would be great to go back to the Ashes… it would be great to go back… to England and have a few better memories than I’ve had the last couple of times,” he said. – SAPA-AFP