Former Australia skipper Michael Clarke has revealed how he ‘fought’ to save Ricky Ponting from getting axed after Clarke was promoted to the place of captain. Clarke mentioned that selectors gave him an possibility of sidelining the Australian legend however Clarke rejected it outright.
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“When I took over the captaincy, I fought to keep Ricky,” mentioned Michael Clarke whereas talking on the Uncensored podcast.
“The selectors said, ‘Very rarely does a captain stand down and stay in the team, so if you don’t feel comfortable … it’s time for Ricky to go’. I said, ‘We need him. We need him for his batting, but he’ll be another coach for us’. So I fought hard to keep him, I wanted him there. I thought he played a big part in helping that younger generation get to the level we needed to. If he was batting at 80 percent, he was better than anybody else at No. 3 or No. 4.”
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Clarke additional mentioned that he hated being vice captain as he knew he will likely be subsequent in line. “I found it really difficult when I was vice-captain that there was an expectation that I was always going to be the next captain. I hated that. I would rather have stayed a youngster, or be captain. I wasn’t very good at the in-between.”
Ponting performed six extra Test match beneath Clarke’s management earlier than retiring in 2012 the place he performed his last Test match towards South Africa. The Aussie legend revealed in his autobiography that Clarke by no means took duty as his deputy.
“It wasn’t that he was disruptive or treacherous, and publicly he said all the right things, but he had never been one to get too involved in planning sessions or debriefs at the end of a day’s play, or to volunteer to take on any of the captain’s workload.”
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