Adelaide, January 27: Skipprer Ricky Ponting has urged the Australian cricket authorities not to tinker with the Sheffield Shield competition which has helped to produce several great players over the years.
Australian selector Jamie Cox had suggested that the early season Sheffield Shield matches should be moved out of the traditional venues with northern venues such as Darwin, Cairns, and Townsville hosting these games.
The move, if implemented, would enable Cricket Australia (CA) to create a calendar window to expand the increasingly popular Big Bash T20 competition.
However, according to Ponting, diluting the domestic competition would be detrimental to the development of the young players since it would rob them of the chance of facing the various challenges that present themselves at the traditional venues.
”There seems to be a lot of talk about ways and means of making the Big Bash bigger and devoting more time to Twenty20.
”If I think about moving (Shield) games to the Top End, you’re going to lose something there somewhere,” Ponting said.
”Those young guys are not going to get the chance to play at the MCG, SCG, those sort of venues, or play at the Gabba early season when the wicket’s green.
”Those are the things that have made Australian Test players as good as they are because of the way they’ve learned to adapt to different conditions, in the conditions you play Test matches,” he added.
Although the Sheffield Shield is safe at the moment, commercial considerations may force the CA to consider Cox’s suggestion.
The CA’s operations staff will consider the sugesstions for the 2011-12 season, when they must find a way to fit 31 Twenty20 matches into a calendar that is already bursting with the current 17.
——Agencies