Ponting backs Doolan for No.3

Australia’s longest-serving and most prolific number three Test batsman has called on the national selectors to reinstate Alex Doolan in the premier batting role for the upcoming four-match series against India.

Ricky Ponting, who scored almost twice as many Test runs as Australia’s next-most successful first-drop batsman (Sir Donald Bradman) urged the selection panel to give his fellow Tasmanian Doolan an extended chance to prove his credentials for the job.

Doolan was elevated to the role, considered the most important in any batting line-up, for this year’s  Test series in South Africa which Australia won to reclaim the world’s number one ranking (albeit briefly).

He was the 10^th player to be tried at number three (including all-rounder James Faulkner who was employed as a pinch-hitter during the final Test of the 2013 Ashes series in England) since Ponting vacated the role in 2011 having averaged 56.27 in his 196 innings there.

But when he failed to reach double figures in either innings of the first Test against Pakistan in Dubai last month, Doolan was dropped in favour of innovative all-rounder Glenn Maxwell who scored 37 (batting at four behind nightwatchman Nathan Lyon) and 4.

It means that since Ponting’s departure from the pivotal batting berth, Australia’s new number threes have averaged just over 31 between them as selectors continue their search for a long-term replacement.

Ponting, who played alongside Doolan in the ex-Test captain’s final Bupa Sheffield Shield and was cited as a key influence in the right-hander’s ascension to the national team, believes his fellow Tasmanian was jettisoned before he had a chance to secure the demanding spot.

“I would have stuck with Doolan, I was pretty vocal about that going into the second Test match in Abu Dhabi,” Ponting told cricket.com.au at today’s launch of the 100-day countdown to the 2015 ICC World Cup in Australia and New Zealand.

“I think he deserved another opportunity.

“I know him well, I know his game, I know his technique and if he was given an extended run at it he would nail it down.

“So there’s decisions to make now that they (selectors Rod Marsh, Trevor Hohns, Mark Waugh and Darren Lehmann) have gone that way.

“Are they going to go back to Doolan again, or if (Shane) Watson’s fit his he going to come back in there?

“There’s a few things that they need to consider now.”

In addition to Doolan and Maxwell, all-rounder Watson has been identified as a possibility to return to the role for the India series given he has batted there 19 times previously in Tests (749 runs at 41.61 with one century) and has now recovered from calf and ankle injuries.

Shaun Marsh, who made a century at number three in his debut Test in Sri Lanka in 2011 and has recently returned to the game following elbow surgery, is another who might come under consideration if he finds form in upcoming Shield games.

But Australia captain Michael Clarke yesterday hosed down calls for number five batsman Steve Smith to be elevated in the order claiming it was too early in the 25-year-old’s Test career, although he declined to speculate on who he thought should fill the role.

"Fortunately I'm not a selector," Clarke said upon his return from the United Arab Emirates when asked who he felt was best suited to bat at first-drop.

"I'm not going there."

Ponting also tactfully side-stepped the latest re-ignition of the Andrew Symonds-Harbhajan Singh racism row that threatened to derail of India’s Test tour to Australia in 2007-08.

In his autobiography released overnight, former Indian Test captain and batting maestro Sachin Tendulkar claimed the incident during the New Year Test in Sydney – in which Symonds’ claim that he was racially abused by Harbhajan was reported to match referee Mike Procter – almost led to India abandoning the tour.

Tendulkar reiterates in his book that Harbhajan did not racially abuse Symonds, and that the report lodged by then Australian captain Ponting and the subsequent hearing "almost caused the tour to be called off.”

Image Id: ~/media/9E4054D4A61A4CD4B357F364C43E841C 

"I must reiterate we were very serious about the boycott … and we were fully prepared to accept the consequences of walking out on the tour, knowing that such an action might have resulted in the ICC banning the Indian team," Tendulkar says in his book ‘Playing It My Way’.

"What surprised me most was the haste with which the Australians had lodged their complaint.

“I still believe that the matter would not have been blown so out of proportion if Ponting had discussed it with the (Indian) captain Anil Kumble, Harbhajan and the Indian team management before reporting the incident to Mike Procter, the match referee.

“In turn, Mike Procter could also have handled the matter with a little more sensitivity."

But Ponting, who was outspoken about the incident in his own autobiography released last summer, opted not to further fan the flames when asked about Tendulkar’s recounting of the story.

“I’ve spoken about it a lot in my book, haven’t I?” Ponting said.

“I’ve spoken a lot about it in press conferences and things around the world for a lot of years now.

“I’ve got nothing to add to it because he (Tendulkar) is giving his side of events, and I’ve given my side of events in the past.

“All I can say is, hand on heart, I did everything I was expected to do by the betterment of the game and by the betterment of society.”

Image Id: ~/media/36F524F33CA4409AA4B53F5C40023C73