Captaincy hasn't hurt my batting - Ponting

[Beny]

http://aus.cricinfo.com/db/ARCHIVE/C...15DEC2004.html

Ricky Ponting does not believe the Test captaincy has affected his batting, but he intends to finish a "stop-start" year on a high against Pakistan, starting in the first Test at the WACA tomorrow. Entering the match with 505 runs at 36.07 for 2004, Ponting has fallen well short of his career average and his Australian-record haul of 1503 runs at 100.2 last year.

All this **** about his batting is getting anoying . He's had a rough year but we only have to look back to the world cup final to show that his batting as captain is as good as ever.

[flanflinger]

True, but in 7 tests as Captian he is still to score a hundred

                       Mat    I  NO  Runs HS1  HS2  HS3     Ave 100  50   0
 

Career                  82  132  16  6254 257  242  206   53.91  20  24   7

As Captain               7   13   1   433  92   68   51   36.08   0   3   0

[Milo]

Maybe one way to look at it, was that he is a batsman who has periods of extreme form. Here are his test career statistics.

Year     M   Inns  NO  50s   100s   HS   Runs   Avg      Ca   St
1995     2     2    0   2     0     96   167    83.50    4    0 
1996     4     8    0   1     0     88   163    20.38    5    0 
1997     7    11    1   1     2    127   497    49.70    3    0 
1998     9    14    1   3     0    *76   382    29.38    9    0 
1999    11    17    3   3     4    197   883    63.07   11    0 
2000     5     7    2   1     1   *141   318    63.60    8    0 
2001    14    24    4   4     2   *157   772    38.60   25    0 
2002    11    16    1   2     5    154  1064    70.93   15    0 
2003    11    18    3   4     6    257  1503   100.20    8    0 
2004     8    15    1   3     0     92   505    36.07    9    0 
Overall 82   132   16   24   20    257  6254    53.91   97    0

If you notice, he hit a rich vain of form during the Pakistan and India test series of 1999/2000, the rest of 2000 was woeful, he also had a poor 2001, where he couldn't score a run for toffee in the first three Ashes tests.

This is his level - for much of his career he was hit and miss - 2002-2003 was a huge purple patch (with 11 centuries) that lifted him up to the higher eschelons with the likes of Lara, Tendulkar and Dravid. He is not that good - in fact, he's on a par with the likes of Mark Waugh, Dean Jones and Mark Taylor for me. You can get him if you get at him early in his innings. He plays his on drives on the walk and the moving ball can have him edging the ball to slips or trapped LBW in front. Goughy knew how to bowl to him and so did many other good new ball bowlers. If the ball isn't moving he will murder you though.

[Beny]

Ponting rearly goes on the walk more than twice in the first two overs. This whole thing about him being weak early in his innings is being blown out of proportion.

What you miss out Milo is that early in his carrer (and some would still question now) he had a drinking problem.

In the stats you show he had four years when he averaged less than 40 in test matches. He has 24 test match tons and he's only 29 years of age. Last year he averaged 100.2. That is huge, including two consecutive hundreds to pull the team out of trouble against the Indians.

for much of his career he was hit and miss - 2002-2003 was a huge purple patch

That lifted him above the likes of Lara and Tendualker... By far. Before that he was on the same par as them, averaging 63 for two consecutive years. He's had some rough periods but it dosent change the fact that he is a great batsmen. It's easy to look at his statistics and see a year of averaging 49 or 38 and say he is up and down. But in all reality it's not that bad. Some of the English batsmen will avearge 38 for their entire carrers.

Ponting's current average is 53.

[Ernest]

Ponting can't say yet wheather or not he has been hurt by being Australia's captain, he may well not have been, but a lot of great players before him have, not least Ian Botham, and a former world number 1, Michael vaughan is no longer number 1, and gues what, he is Englands captain.

I reckon it must be harder for Ponting, because he has so much to live up to, it's not just a matter of taking over a great team, he has to live up to the feats of the former Australian captains, not an easy job, and be expected to keep his form as well.
Only time will tell.

[vvvrulz]

Matt Hayden has had a somewhat lean trot of late as well, if Ponting does have a form slump, it could be for reasons beside captaincy, every player has a bad patch.