Ricky Ponting, who is thought to be one of the best leaders to ever play the game, has now put together his best Test XI for both India and Australia. The famous Australian player put together an all-star team from the two teams that will play in the final of the ICC World Test Championship (WTC) based more on how well they have done recently than on how well they are known.
First, Ponting picked Rohit Sharma and Usman Khawaja as the left-handed and right-handed starters for each team. Even though Pat Cummins was on the Aussie team for the WTC final, the former Australia captain picked Rohit to lead the combined Test XI because he had a lot of experience as a leader.
“I’m going left-to-right, so Rohit Sharma will be the other starter. He’s not just about the way he looks, either. “I wanted him to be the team captain,” Ponting said on the most recent episode of ICC Review.
Ponting even said why he chose Rohit to be the team’s leader. The famous Australian cricketer seemed to be very pleased with how Rohit led India to a 2-1 win over Australia in a Test series on Indian soil earlier this year for the Border-Gavaskar Trophy. Ponting also chose Marnus Labuschagne as the third batsman for the combined Test XI. He said that Labuschagne’s recent performance was as good as or better than any other batsman in the world.
“He hasn’t done much wrong since he entered Test cricket as an injured substitute at Lord’s when Jofra Archer hit Steve Smith. It was challenging to surpass him, according to Ponting, because he has advanced and grown rapidly to reach his current position, which is right at the top of the world Test Batting Rankings.
Moving on, the former Australian captain chose Virat Kohli and Steven Smith as his number four and five batters, respectively, because neither of them could be left out after the great results they’ve had over the last ten years or so. Ricky Ponting also pointed out that both of these hitters have done very well in Test cricket, scoring a lot of hundreds.
“I know it’s been a few years and a bit of a dry spell for Virat, but he got back to his best in that last series against Australia and deserves to be in the middle order,” said the former captain who led India to the World Cup.
Ravindra Jadeja can easily keep the number six or even number seven spot because of how useful he has been in Test matches over the last two or three years. Since India doesn’t have Rishabh Pant available right now, Ponting picked Alex Carey to keep wicket. The famous Australian said that his team will have three main fast bowlers and one main spin bowler.
Based on the final teams for the WTC, this is Ricky Ponting’s India-Australia Test XI:
Rohit Sharma (c), Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Virat Kohli, Steve Smith, Ravindra Jadeja, Alex Carey (wk), Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc, Nathan Lyon, Mohammed Shami, and Marnus Labuschagne.
India
