Cam Green should just keep things simple in Tests: Ponting on under-performing all-rounder
Melbourne (PTI): The legendry Ricky Pointing has advised tall Australian all-rounder Cameron Green to keep things simple and not over analyse or tinker with his game in order to find the right approach in Tests.
Green, who recently became the costliest overseas buy in IPL history at the mini auction after being purchased by Kolkata Knight Riders for a Rs 25.20 crore, has had an underwhelming Ashes series against England.
While Australia have already clinched the Ashes after winning the first three Tests, Green has scored just 76 runs and picked up two wickets.
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"Apparently, he's a very deep thinker about his own game and likes to tinker with things a lot," former Australia captain Ponting said on the ICC Review.
"But if I had some advice for him, it'd be just keep things as simple as you can, think about what you've done at domestic cricket and take your domestic game to the Test match and back it in for a while," he added.
Green, who made his debut against India five years back in Adelaide, has so far played 35 Tests with the pace-bowling all-rounder taking 37 wickets and chipping in with 1,641 runs at an average of around 33.
With numbers not quite adding up, Ponting believes the 26-year-old Green's contribution is hard to measure at this stage of his career.
"It's actually quite hard to get a gauge on him yet as an international player. He averages under 30 in Australia now. His career averages just over 30.
"He's made two Test match hundreds in 30-odd Test matches. He's had back surgery, and his bowling pace is probably not quite what it was 12 months ago," opined Ponting.
However, the legend sounded quite optimistic about Green, saying the all-rounder's skills do underline his potential in the Baggy Green.
"But there is a very complete package there if it all comes together. And we've seen him play some pretty remarkable innings.
"He made an incredible 100 in New Zealand last year. He's got 100 in India as well, albeit on a very, very flat pitch."
Green scored his maiden Test century in Ahmedabad, scoring 114 after coming in at a tricky situation, while his best effort followed a year later in March 2024, when he hammered an unbeaten 174 in Wellington to guide Australia to a 172-run win.
"Talking to the players, talking to the coaching staff, they absolutely love what he brings to the group, said Ponting.
"The biggest challenge he has is, he's just got to find out the right way and right style for him to play, work out what's going to work for him, and then commit to that and stick to it for a long period of time."
Ponting, however, said that Australia persisting with Green in the ongoing Ashes had impacted the chances of another tall all-rounder Beau Webster.
"But the unfortunate player in this whole Australian summer so far has been Beau Webster. He didn't do much wrong in the games that he played. Certainly, in Australia, in his debut game, he was very good," said Ponting.
"Then had to go to the West Indies, where the wickets were very, very challenging for all batters. And he got undone by a couple of almost unplayable deliveries over there.
"He got injured at the start of the Australian summer and missed a couple of Shield games, which probably didn't help because he didn't get the same sort of run-in and runs under his belt as someone like Labuschagne did. Unfortunately, Beau didn't have that, and as I said, I actually feel a bit for him, and he might be the one that they're thinking about in that No.7 slot as well."
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Virat Kohli returns to Vijay Hazare Trophy: King’s tryst with silence and chaos
Bengaluru (PTI): Virat Kohli’s 58th List A hundred resembled a grand opera played inside an empty Royal Albert Hall.
Kohli’s 83-ball knock for Delhi against Andhra in the Vijay Hazare Trophy was magnificent as usual in its execution, but there were no screaming spectators to garnish the occasion here at the BCCI Centre of Excellence.
The Karnataka government’s reticence to grant permission to host matches at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium citing security reasons forced the KSCA to shift matches to CoE, and the venue was out of bounds for fans.
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So, instead of a roaring house, a tranche of snail-paced cargo trucks, a large posse of police personnel and few fans gawking over the barbed concrete walls provided an austere setting for Kohli’s return to Vijay Hazare Trophy after 15 years.
Kohli himself might have found it a tad bizarre. For a better part of the last decade and half, the 37-year-old has always walked onto a cricket field to an uproarious welcome.
Even his return to Ranji Trophy earlier this year after a hiatus of 12 years at Ferozeshah Kotla had drawn huge crowds.
But on a sunny Wednesday, Kohli made a rather unfamiliar, lonely walk to the middle — no cheers, no chants of "Kohli... Kohli!" and not even that ubiquitous RCB cries that reverberate around stadiums irrespective of the formats he plays.
The thick veil of silence was breached only when the fielding side players chatted among themselves or when occasional applause emanated from the respective dressing rooms.
But the entire sight had its own charm. A champion cricketer who has always been flanked on either side by fame and fans, was now doing it all alone.
There were short chats and high-fives with teammates, a diving stop to deny Ricky Bhui another boundary, and a quick word of advice to Delhi pacer Navdeep Saini when Andhra batters carted him around.
Kohli even jived to some imaginary tune. Perhaps, an effort to recreate an air of exuberance and theatre around him, something he loves to do so dearly on a cricket field.
He was trying to flame the dramatist inside him, which often drove him to some dizzying peaks.
Kohli the master batter
But that situational solitude did not affect his batting. Barring a couple of drops, Kohli slipped into his familiar ‘Chase Master’ garb with ease.
His money shots were on full view on Wednesday — pulls, charge to spinners, flicks, cuts and those beautiful perpendicular bat straight drives.
Fifty came in 39 balls and 100 in 83 balls, but none of those moments were celebrated with usual gusto. But a simple wave to the dressing room marked the occasion.
In fact, silence shrouded those moments so deep that a blink could have made one miss them.
But there was another side to it. Perhaps, Kohli too might have enjoyed that slice of loneliness which he often craves for.
That search for privacy has made him set an alternate base in London apart from his uber posh Mumbai dwelling. Here, he had all the desired isolation.
But the day ended in familiar chaos. Andhra cricketers and officials mobbed him for photographs and autographs, and he obliged with a smile.
“It was a dream to play in the same match as Kohli. I always wanted to play with or in the opposition (of Kohli), and the all the Andhra cricketers were elated at the opportunity,” said fellow centurion Ricky Bhui after the match.
As boxing legend Frank Bruno once said: ‘Boy! That’s cricket.”
