Ricky Ponting: “He’s the sort of player that I love watching. Aggressive player that takes the game on, and wears his heart on his sleeve a little bit”
Image taken by: Bimal Mirwani
Former Australia captain Ricky Ponting said Pakistan limited overs skipper Mohammad Rizwan is “the sort of player that I love watching”.
Ponting noted that he really enjoys the way Rizwan “takes the game on” and has an aggressive mentality as well.
Based off this, the Australian batting icon believes that the 32-year-old can do well as Pakistan captain, but stressed the need to give him enough time to prove himself.
“He’s the sort of player that I love watching. Aggressive player that takes the game on, and wears his heart on his sleeve a little bit. I reckon you can see he gets quite emotional out on the field, out on the ground as well, which I think is a good thing. It tends to show that you really care about what you’re doing and what your team’s trying to achieve,” Ponting was quoted as saying by Cricket Pakistan.
“So the proof will be in the pudding. I mean, we won’t know (until they) give him a decent run at it. They obviously feel he’s the right man for here and now.”
Rizwan made his captaincy debut during Pakistan’s limited overs series against Australia and began on a high as the men in green triumphed 2-1 in the ODI leg to claim their first ODI series win in the country since 2002.
However, they failed to maintain their momentum in the three T20Is as Australia whitewashed them 3-0.
Pakistan then travelled to Zimbabwe and triumphed 2-1 in both the ODI and T20I series.
As for their tour of South Africa, the men in green lost the T20I series 2-0 before bouncing back to claim a 3-0 victory in the ODIs.
In the two-Test series that followed, Pakistan were thumped 2-0.
Pakistan just finished taking on the West Indies in a two-Test series in Multan, which ended as a 1-1 draw.
Pakistan Squad for West Indies Test Series: Shan Masood (captain), Saud Shakeel (vice-captain), Abrar Ahmed, Babar Azam, Imam-ul-Haq, Kamran Ghulam, Kashif Ali, Khurram Shahzad, Mohammad Ali, Mohammad Huraira, Mohammad Rizwan (wicketkeeper), Noman Ali, Rohail Nazir (wicketkeeper), Sajid Khan, Salman Ali Agha