Alas Poor Ricky, We Knew Him Well

The baying of the media wolves has finally started - twelve months after the fact - especially as a member of the Cricket Australia board has been caught having a leak. What a difference a directorship makes. Years ago a member of my club leaked on the pitch during a game and had a few weeks off to train his greyhounds to winners. The leak is of course, just part of the process of promulgating a new direction we have adopted from the Westminster system of politics. As Sir Humphrey said in Yes Minister, "the ship of state is the only ship that leaks from the top" and so it goes. The Board, we are shaped to believe, is concerned with the marketability of a 36 year old captain whilst the vice captain and next big thang has the Mo Matthews mojo with younger fans.

Oh and there is the thing with Ponting's uncontrolled outbursts and apparent inability to lead himself - let alone the team - by any example that is conducive to long term winning cricket. Let's not mention standards.

Punter has been prolific in these few long weeks of the World Cup. First there was the box throwing breaker Marantz incident and then the MC Ponting "You Can't Touch This" dance with a bemused Steve Smith. Now he's under further scrutiny not so much for his failure to walk when he laid half a Brazilian rain forest on a ball against Pakistan and then stood gobsmacked that anyone would appeal at such a thing but more for his startling admission at the press conference afterwards. The real hanging offence was his failure to keep that same gob smacked with the media.

Of course Fox Sports was keen to publish a comparison between Ponting's hell no, I won't go and Tendulkar's immediate turn and walk on the same night against the West Indies. It was pushed nicely in that direction by an obliging Indian media still seeking revenge over the incidents with Harbhajan and the Indian team in Sydney in January 2008 during a highly fractious tour. They say elephants - prized on the sub continent - never forget and they remember Ponting's role in the fiasco and his celebratory shenanigans were never punished by his own authorities.

What of walking? Surely, its only an issue when a batsman chooses to leave immediately when there is a decision which could be at all questionable. Therefore, Gilchrist made headlines for leaving when he knew he was out but others were not so sure. In the circumstances in which Ponting fell against Pakistan, there was no question. The full speed first view showed it and the first replay confirmed a big, fat, healthy edge. In those circumstances, players have always left, in much the same way as one does when the castle is felled. This is not walking, its just expected.

Ponting is a drowning man. His behaviour has shown it and now forcing an umpires hand only makes it seem an even more desperate act of a man on his last involuntary dip below the waves. Desperate men are selfish but not necessarily by choice or conscious decision, so Ponting won't consider that he has questions to answer with what followed. Pakistan erupted we he stood his ground, even when faced with what Pakistan coach Waqar Younis later described as the inevitability of replays and remember, Ponting stood there, knowing he had hit it. Haddin reacted out of ill-founded loyalty to his skipper in that passionate, big mouthed, chest strutting way he finds it necessary to be the world's expert in. The umpire was placed under unnecessary pressure and ruled on a lie, something which can't help his development. Pushing, shoving, another ugly incident and all of it unnecessary and tied, inexorably to that drowning man.

I've never been a fan of this pugnacious little map of Tassie, despite recognising the beauty in his cover drive, the skill in his pull shot and his poise in the field but even though I have called on his departure from the international scene before, these current events bring no joy, no smugness in the accuracy of my prediction. Instead, a deep sadness invades me as I watch a man loose his chance for greatness either through poor counsel or the last vestiges of a never say die attitude. Its like watching Hawke stride down that corridor on the way to the party meeting which gave him the Brutus treatment and its always worse when you know that the end could have contained so much more grace and appreciation. After this, the applause will be at best muted.

Please Ricky, please. throw us the necessary crumbs. Announce your intention to retire when this campaign ends and go out the way you have played, full steam ahead toward the sunset.

Sydney Morning Herald Poll "Should Ricky Ponting remain as Australian Test Captain?"

"Crash" Craddock Talking on Fox About Ponting's Retirement