da casino： Australia bowled only spinners and part-timers after tea on day four in Nagpur, in an attempt to boost the over-rate, a tactic that just about everyone found inexplicable
da wazamba： 11-Nov-2008
‘Let’s hurry it up here’© AFP
“In his most embarrassing moment in his 48th Test as Test captain in five years in charge, Ponting opted to worry more about improving Australia’s sluggish over rate than going for broke to try and snare a must-win match when a result was clearly on the line.”
Daily Telegraph”The first question you’ve got to ask is: how the hell can he keep making the same mistake? He has been in that position previously in this series; he has been fined and he has been warned about the slow overs but here we are again… He’s the guy who takes up a lot of time talking to his bowlers, talking to his fielders about tactics, changing his field placings – and all of that just takes too long.”
“Myself as captain of the Australian cricket team, I feel I have a lot of responsibility to play the game in the right spirit, I have an obligation to try to bowl 90 overs in the day’s play… The thing I’m most disappointed about is there seems to be this inference out there that I’ve put myself totally ahead of the team.”
“I might be concerned, I might not be. It depends on getting a clear understanding of the circumstances that ensured that we played the way we did after the tea break… I’d like to understand the situation.”
“I don’t know what to make of all this. They go into the tea break on a high and come out worrying about over-rates… I am glad Ricky can’t read my mind right now because he is not going to like it.”
“Whatever Ponting had in his tea, it did not help his judgment afterwards.”
Times”I remember when I played it was considered a badge of honour not to have a drink in a session [apart from the scheduled drinks break]. And no one died from dehydration. These days there are far too many drinks breaks. It’s ridiculous. But it is just not the captain’s fault. It is up to coaches, referees and umpires to keep the show moving.”
“It’s easy to sit up in the commentary box and poke fire at the captain because of the decisions he’s making out there.”
“One could never imagine Ian Chappell making such a decision in his day but if he had, I wonder whether the likes of Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thomson would have taken it with the same apparent grace that Watson and Lee did today.”
“I always thought he was an ordinary captain and this proves it. His captaincy calculator isn’t that brilliant, is it?”
“To give themselves a chance, the Australians needed to take four wickets in that hour… Did not the dressing room sense the mood? Do they not know that there is a tide in the affairs of men that must be taken at the flood?”
“It’s not the captain’s fault and this was clearly a decision at the weekend made by four or five people.”
“I can’t understand why the fast bowlers wouldn’t bowl off a short run.”
“We were quite happy to get a few runs on the board in that particular time.”