Ricky Ponting’s glittering one-day career is on borrowed time at best after suffering his worst slump in the 50-over game.
Australia’s leading ODI run-scorer may have played his last match at the Gabba after being dismissed for an ugly seven off 26 balls against India on Sunday.
It was his fifth straight single-figure score in the tri-series, leaving the 37-year-old with 18 runs at 3.6 in five bats and his top-order place on thin ice.
Never before in his 375-match ODI career has Ponting failed to reach double figures in five consecutive games but statistics don’t tell the full story.
Coming to the crease after David Warner (43 off 46) propelled Australia to 1-70 in the 13th over, the Tasmanian looked horribly out of sorts as he struggled to find the middle of his bat.
Ponting took 13 balls to get off the mark, resorted to charging Irfan Pathan when on two and was lucky not to be dismissed on four when he attempted to leave a ball from Zaheer Khan but got an underside edge.
Completing the 33-minute momentum-shift, Ponting fell swiping Zaheer off his pads to give Pathan a simple catch at deep square-leg.
Although Ponting’s currently the caretaker captain, there’s no selection guarantees with Michael Clarke due to come back from a minor hamstring strain this week and allrounder Shane Watson also waiting in the wings for a return.
Australia coach Mickey Arthur admitted on Saturday Ponting was jaded following a long summer where he’d played every game and needed a rest.
While Arthur said Ponting was too important to Clarke’s rising team, the rest is likely to come when the selectors meet on Monday to choose a new squad.
Ponting could then be in serious danger of following in the footsteps of dumped wicketkeeper Brad Haddin whose resting has become an interminable sleep due to the form of replacement Matthew Wade.
With the next World Cup three years away, there were calls for Ponting to retire from one-day cricket and become a Test specialist before his latest failure.
His last one-day century was 17 matches and almost 11 months ago in the quarter-final loss to India at the 2011 World Cup – his final match as full-time skipper.
In Australia’s last two one-day series, he’s scored just 104 runs at 12.75 and selection chief John Inverarity may find it’s the best time to move forward with younger batsmen and leave Ponting to focus on Test cricket and build to next year’s Ashes.
