Ponting made mistakes?

[DomainK]

From an Australian point of view, Australia should have won this match. Ponting would be kicking himself right now for not winning. He has been a great captain, but we made them change their game and somewhere they lost the plot. 1. Australian bowlers should not have allowed the Indian tail to score so heavily in the first innings. The tail may be very determined, but never so skillful. 2. Ponting should have asked at least two of his batsmen to score aggressively in the third session of day4. They scored at less than 2.3 most of the time when they were actually running out of time. When you aim at dismissing the opposition in two sessions flat, you are taking a big risk....specifically given that the pitch is slow. 3. May be....just may be Ponting came into the game with a defensive mindset with absence of a couple of the seniors and his own form in India playing in his mind. But then, to be fair to him, India played well to come back and end it in a draw. But there were a few things that Australia did not do the way Australia always does.

[h4te]

Man of the Match is Zaheer Khan He says, "Can't get better than this. Happy with the way things have gone in this match... Looking at the game, we were in trouble the moment we lost the toss... I have never seen an Australian team play such defensive cricket, which is a good thing for us... Bowling in tandem with Ishant is very important and a pleasure... Bhajji was advising me all the time, making sure I was on the front foot. On odd occasion he would crack a joke that would calm the nerves."

MASALLAH PONTING HAZ BEEN PWNED

[bharat297]

I hope Ponting comes out too aggressive next game and they get rolled cheaply

[Chandan]

I don't think Ponting will deviate from his strategies because of that one comment. I think even if defensive, they played superbly when they batted first on the flat track, took 5 sessions and put runs on the board. Then his bowlers performed better than expected when they got India down to 232/7, after which India fought back and finally they could take a lead of 70 runs only. In the second inning also they started cautiously to see themselves not crumbling in front of Indian bowlers and today when they were on top, their aggressive strategies were seen by everyone. I think Ponting had a pretty good match both as a batsman and as a skipper. He always had a back up plan which would see Australia drawing at worst and winning at best. In other words he was not prepared to lose this match while going for a win under any circumstances like previous Australian teams. Not a bad strategy if you have a relatively inexperienced team!

[bharat297]

Actually Ponting's biggest mistake I felt, was not having enough men close to the bat on the off side, when the spinners were on.

[Chandan]

Spinner were bowling the incoming delivering more, targetting LBW and that was fair enough! They had success that way at Sydney and they had every reason to believe that the same strategy will be successful here too. Today he had a perfect umbrella field when bowlers didn't have any pressure on them. You have to agree that Australia played better cricket here and having specialist spinners didn't serve India at all. And the lack of a good spinner didn't hurt Australia too much, nor did the non experience of their batsmen in Indian conditions. It'll be interesting to see how he approaches the match once he loses the toss and faces the consequences of batting on the 5th day track.

[Sachinism]

I hope Ponting comes out too aggressive next game and they get rolled cheaply

I doubt they will, previous tours to India they tried the aggressive approach and it didnt work, now they've settled for being a bit more cautious -- I felt ponting could have been more aggressive, after a point it was obvious India aren't going for the win, there was no point having the field out, he should have attacked more, put more pressure on India and made them take unnecessary risks

[coffee_rules]

They won the last series. So, their tactics obviously worked. I think Ponting was a bit defensive on D4 morning to clean out Zaheer and last 2 wkts - Kumble and Ishant. More than runs, the time consumed hurt them more. At 128/5 India were certainly on top. Great rearguard action of Watson and Haddin costed India the game. If Aus were all out for 150 or so, India would have won this test match. So, They kind of saved the match. Also, D5 pitch needed specialist spinners and not a rookie/part times. So, Aus drew the match on D4 itself.

[The Outsider]

Ponting doesn't really have too many options except to be a bit defensive. It was the superb opening spell by Ishant and Zaheer on day 4 which bought time for India. Till Watson and Haddin got together, Australia were in with a genuine chance of losing the match which would have been a catastrophic start to the tour after winning the toss in the opening test. Warne might not have picked up too many wickets on the last tour but he did bowl some long economical spells and did a pretty good job of wrapping up the tail. Relying on the likes of White and Clarke to bowl out the Indian batting line up in 83 overs was always going to be tough but frankly they were not left with much choice after Ishant and Zaheer got Ponting and Hayden cheaply on day 4.

[Dinx - the Jinx]

They won the last series. So, their tactics obviously worked. I think Ponting was a bit defensive on D4 morning to clean out Zaheer and last 2 wkts - Kumble and Ishant. More than runs, the time consumed hurt them more. At 128/5 India were certainly on top. Great rearguard action of Watson and Haddin costed India the game. If Aus were all out for 150 or so, India would have won this test match. So, They kind of saved the match. Also, D5 pitch needed specialist spinners and not a rookie/part times. So, Aus drew the match on D4 itself.

I was waiting for someone to write about this point of view. You are bang on target. I would like to believe that it was Australia who drew the game and not us. Had Australia got all out for 150 or 170 on Day 4, we would have easily chased the target of 220 or 240 in 4 sessions. All we had to do was to hang in there for 4 sessions and runs would have come on their own, as we saw on Day 5, where we scored 177 in 73 overs.