London, July 18: Former England all-rounder Vic Marks has rated Ricky Ponting as the best Australian batsman since Don Bradman, and believes that the skipper’s wicket is always crucial for the hosts than anyone else in the visitors’ line up at the ongoing Ashes series.
Ponting (2), who was the man-of-the-match after his masterly 150 in the first Ashes Test, was yesterday caught up in umpires’ confusion before he was given out in a controversial catch by Andrew Strauss at the first slip off James Anderson’s inswinger. Marks said though all the wickets are equal- a Kevin Pietersen equals a Monty Panesar- but in the middle, some wickets are more equal than others.
”There are key players in every side, who exercise the minds of the strategists beyond everyone else. The problem of Don Bradman preoccupied English cricketers for almost two decades and the only solution they could find endangered one of our treasured colonies.
”Ricky Ponting, a candidate for the accolade ‘the best Australian batsman since Bradman’, is the key man in this touring side, the wicket the England players covet beyond everyone else. So his dismissal will be the focal point of any day, especially when it involves three umpires, when there are three possible outcomes to the appeal and when that appeal takes about three minutes to resolve,” the former right-hander wrote in his column for ‘The Guardian’.
Australian batting line yesterday collapsed to 156 for eight on the second day of the second Ashes Test at Lord’s after pace bowler Anderson produced his best bowling for England claiming four wickets.
When play was called off for bad light, Australia still needed 70 runs to avoid the follow-on after dismissing England for 425 in the morning session. Marks further went on to add words on the umpires’ decision on controversial catch of Ponting.
Anderson and those behind the stumps appealed initially for lbw after Strauss caught Ponting at slip. However, umpire Rudi Koertzen before giving the decision looked at square-leg and his fellow umpire, Billy Doctrove. Given that Doctrove has a chosen profession as an umpire, Koertzen awaited Doctrove decision on the wicket but he was left with surprise when it became apparent that Doctrove could not help.
So the matter was referred to the third umpire, Nigel Llong. Meanwhile, Koertzen was consulting Llong to check whether Strauss had made a clean catch and TV replayed cleared that this was the case.
It was also almost obvious that Ponting’s bat had not made contact with the ball. But further inspection revealed that there was a strong case that the Australian captain was in fact lbw from the Anderson delivery.
”We must assume that the question he (Koertzen) asked was a straightforward ‘did the ball carry?’- an easy one to answer in this instance. So Koertzen raised his finger and Ponting, thunderous in outlook since he clearly felt that he had not hit the ball, returned to the pavilion, accompanied by sporadic boos,” he said of Koertzen consulting Llong.
”This episode did little to enhance confidence in Koertzen. He had three options in response to the appeal: not out, out lbw, out caught at slip. He chose the last, which the TV replays suggested was the least likely to be correct. A sort of justice had been reached but for all the wrong reasons,” the 53-year-old added.
The former all-rounder also questioned that would the referral system have helped them in the Ponting episode.
”Neither side showed much enthusiasm for this system before the series. England, after their experiences in the Caribbean, sometimes involving Koertzen, ended up as hostile to the process, which often created more chaos than clarity; the Australians, after their tour to South Africa, were no more than lukewarm.
”So much depends on the question asked by the on-field umpire to his colleague in the stands. Today Koertzen could only ask ‘did it carry?’ and Llong was not entitled to say ‘yes but he didn’t hit it’. But there is no guarantee that we would have been much better off about Ponting’s dismissal after a referral,” the former Somersault captain added.
—–Agencies