Michael Clarke confident about Ricky Ponting’s future

Michael Clarke, the Australian captain, still has a lot of faith in the abilities of Ricky Ponting and expressed that the former captain will be a part of the Test team in the next season.

Ponting is considered to be one of the modern greats of the game (second only to Sachin Tendulkar in terms of most runs in ODIs, and third in Test cricket, behind Tendulkar and Dravid) and is among the best batsmen produced by the Kangaroos. On top of that, he has been one of the most successful captains in the history of Australian cricket (with two World Cup titles).

However, since losing captaincy last year, Ponting has been under immense pressure to maintain his place in the Aussie team. After a poor run of form in the tri-nation tournament back home, Ponting had to announce his retirement from the limited-overs version of the sport.

The veteran still remains an integral part of the Australian team in the five-day format as he performed out of his skin in the recent Test series against India.

In the on-going Test series against the West Indies, the Aussie batsmen have struggled to deliver the goods on a consistent basis, but Clarke made it clear that his ex-captain is under no pressure to maintain his place in the playing XI.

The incumbent skipper expressed that Ponting has been in good touch but has not been able to convert his starts into big knocks. However, he admitted that none of the Aussie batsmen have been consistent on the tour of the Caribbean.

He said, "He's hitting the ball well, probably hasn't got that big score that he'd like but none of us have. Conditions haven't been great for making big hundreds. If he continues to play the way he's played throughout the last 12 months, then I see no reason he won't be in the team come the first Test against South Africa.”

Clarke feels that Ponting can still contribute to the success of Australian cricket and is hopeful that the right-handed top-order batsman will play a big role in the series against South Africa, which is scheduled for later this year.

“There's a lot of cricket to be played from now until then. We also have some first-class cricket leading up to that first Test so I'm confident Ricky's batting well and he's not far away from a big score,” Clarke added.