The latest news coming in from cricket down under is that relating to Australian captain Ricky Ponting. Cricket360 is reliably informed that for the remainder of the one day series against the New Zealanders, Ponting is to be ‘rested’ and in his place Michael Clarke will be leading the Australian team.

According to Australia chairman of selectors Andrew Hilditch "…it was always planned that Ricky would have a break at this time. While this is a difficult decision, given the current performance of the team, in our view it is essential that Ricky has an opportunity to prepare for the forthcoming South Africa tour given his immense workload since the India tour in September last year.”

However one cannot help but wonder at the timing of this ‘resting’ or wonder if this is not in fact a more polite way of saying that Captain Ponting is ‘dropped’ for some time. Recent cricket coverage has shown that while Ponting’s personal form is not bad, the team has not performed very well under his leadership, having lost a majority of the matches as well as every series played in the past couple of months.

So it is not unnatural to wonder if Cricket Australia is considering a change in captaincy; it could be that Clarke is being tried on for size at this time? Well time will tell….

 An earlier Cricket360.com editorial has touched on the fact of the Australian media struggling to accept the fact that the Aussies are no longer no. 1. The Aussies have reacted with anger, bewilderment and sadness at this change; having developed a very low threshold of tolerance for defeat.
Former Aussie players are also heaping scorn upon the present Aussie team. If Rodney Hogg had said that the Aussies players were “strutting around like Peacocks” and that they were “living in denial”, then former fast bowler Jeff Thompson has gone a step further and labeled the Aussie bowling attack as no better than a “third-grade club side,” indicating that the upcoming series of the tour of South Africa was not going to be easy for the Aussie team.

Thompson was bluntly critical of the Aussie bowlers, who in his opinion would be ineffectual against the South Africans. “From what I saw of the Australian attack the other day, what they bowled was absolute crap. Every one of them was terrible,” he said. With his experience in international cricket, Thomson probably knows what he is talking about!

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3.25 Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved."

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