Australian cricket legend Ricky Ponting has named the player who can take over from the captaincy duties from Aaron Finch. Notably, Finch announced his retirement from ODIs during Australia’s recent home series against New Zealand, which the hosts won 3-0.
And with less than a year to go before the start of the 2023 ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup in India, Australia have to decide quickly as to who will take the captaincy reins from Finch. While Cricket Australia (CA) is still pondering, Ponting has shown confidence in pace bowler Pat Cummins to lead the Aussies in the 50-over format. Not to mention, Cummins is already the captain of Australia’s Test cricket side.
“I think it’ll be Pat Cummins, to be honest,” Ponting told host Sanjana Ganesan on The ICC Review show.
“I know he doesn’t play all the ODIs for obvious reasons because his workload in Test cricket has been, like all the fast bowlers, very high in the last few years. I know they are very conscious of making sure that they’ve got Cummins, (Josh) Hazlewood and (Mitchell) Starc 100 per cent fit and healthy for the big Test series to come around. But look, I’ll be surprised if it wasn’t Pat Cummins,” he added.
The Tasmanian also shared his take on David Warner‘s future in the context of leadership in Australia, stating if CA can make Steve Smith the vice-captain in Tests, Warner can also be utilized similarly.
“He is now the Test vice-captain, which means obviously that if Pat Cummins ever misses a Test, then Steve Smith is going to be the captain of Australia again in Test match cricket. So, if that’s the case, and all being even and reasonably fair, then I think it would be OK, as far as I’m concerned, for David Warner to have his name (in the ring). Not saying that they have to make him captain, but he should be able to be in the conversation,” Ponting added further.
