Morgan leaves Ponting searching for positives
In the Wisden Cricketer Blog , Lawrence Booth finds Ricky Ponting in no mood to praise England's limited-overs improvement after Eoin Morgan's century consigned Australia to a four-wicket defeat in the 1st ODI at the Rose Bowl.
Sahil Dutta
25-Feb-2013
In the Wisden Cricketer Blog, Lawrence Booth finds Ricky Ponting in no mood to praise England's limited-overs improvement after Eoin Morgan's century consigned Australia to a four-wicket defeat in the 1st ODI at the Rose Bowl.
Even Ponting, in slightly more grudging mood than usual, conceded Morgan was difficult to set fields to, although his caveat – “against the spinners” – again overlooked Morgan’s efforts against an admittedly second-string Australian seam attack. “There’s not too many guys in international cricket if you bowl them a half-volley they won’t put it away,” said Ponting. True. Neither are there too many who will help a bouncer to very fine third man with no more than a contemptuous flick of the wrist.
Morgan is special and England are lucky Ireland don’t play Test cricket. But what we are witnessing is the flowering of the kind of talent we never thought we would see: a player capable of putting even Pietersen in the shade.
These shifts take time to compute, which is why Ponting was unable – or possibly unwilling – to draw too many conclusions last night. This is fair enough: a single one-day international does not an Ashes triumph make. But it was instructive to hear his overall assessment. “I thought tonight was a pretty even contest,” he said. “For the majority of the game it was right in the balance.” Without wishing to go overboard, this is the kind of thing haunted England captains used to say after another Ashes Test came and went in a couple of sessions of madness.
Sahil Dutta is an assistant editor at ESPNcricinfo