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Specialist shortage our World Cup weakness: Ponting

Ricky Ponting believes a lack of big-hitting late-overs specialists could stand in the way of Australia's goal of a maiden men's T20 World Cup title

Ricky Ponting believes a lack of proven late-innings hitters in Australia's T20 line-up looms as the most likely impediment to the men's team lifting the one piece of global cricket silverware that remains absent from their trophy cabinet.

Australia have won just four of their 15 T20 international matches this year and they depart for the showpiece ICC tournament in the UAE and Oman early next month still smarting from 1-4 series defeats at the hands of West Indies and Bangladesh.

While a raft of first-choice players including batters David Warner and Steve Smith, allrounders Glenn Maxwell and Marcus Stoinis and fast bowlers Pat Cummins and Kane Richardson were absent from those tours, Ponting fears their imminent return won't immediately address the shortcoming.

He said the fact Australia's specialist batters largely fill the top three berths with their respective KFC BBL clubs means the players asked to fill the middle-order roles at numbers five and six boast little experience of the specific skills required under match conditions.

And the former Test captain, who coaches Delhi Capitals in the Indian Premier League and is regarded as one of the game's most astute T20 tacticians, believes that's a key reason underpinning Australia's inability to dominate the shortest format as it has regularly done at Test and ODI level.

Ponting claimed that "on paper" Australia boasted sufficient firepower to match it with the world's pre-eminent T20 outfits at the World Cup, with skipper Aaron Finch also expected to return to full fitness after undergoing knee surgery last month.

But he conceded Australia "just haven’t quite nailed the T20 game yet" and cited the presence of big-hitting late-overs specialists in rival teams as a potential point of difference heading into the tournament that begins its Super 12 phase on October 23 when Australia meet South Africa.

"All the batters in our T20 team bat one, two or three for their Big Bash teams and inevitably they become the leading runs scorers at the end of every Big Bash so they get picked for Australia," Ponting told Perth radio station SEN's 'Gilly and Goss' program today.

"But who bats at five or six for their Big Bash team every game who's in the current Australian team?

"There's no-one.

"If I think of the best finishers I've seen - (West Indies captain) Kieron Pollard, M S Dhoni, Hardik Pandya (both India) - where have their batted their whole lives in the T20 game?

"In those slots, so that's just their game.

"But we just don't have many of those guys who are dominating the back of Big Bash games where you can say 'right, you're going to be listed to bat at number six today and if you get 15 balls we know you'll get 30'.

"So, again, that will potentially be our Achilles heel."

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Ponting noted that allrounders Maxwell, Stoinis and the in-form Mitchell Marsh – who was a stand-out at number three against West Indies and Bangladesh in the absence of regular top-order batters – were rarely listed in the lower-middle order for their BBL line-ups in recent years.

Maxwell seems likely to return to that role at the World Cup but, of the other leading scorers at numbers five and six in the BBL over the past two seasons, only veteran allrounder Dan Christian has earned a place in the Australia squad albeit as one of three travelling reserves.

Apart from Maxwell (428 runs from 11 innings at a strike rate of 160 over the past two summers), the most productive number-five batters in the BBL have been Hobart Hurricanes' Jordan Silk (503 runs at 127 from 21 innings) and Adelaide Strikers' Jonathan Wells (375 at 127 from 15).

In the number six berth over the same time frame, Christian has been the heaviest scorer with 232 runs at a strike rate of 157 from 18 innings, ahead of Tim David (218 at 149 from 12 starts with Hobart and Perth) and Scorchers' Ashton Turner (169 at 142 from 10).

David is currently starring for St Lucia Zouks in the Caribbean Premier League T20 competition, while Turner was part of the Australia squad that recently travelled to the West Indies and Bangladesh but failed to make the cut for the 15-man squad (with three reserves) for the World Cup.

Despite being deployed as an opener for Melbourne Stars during recent BBL campaigns, Stoinis has played all but a handful of his T20Is to date as a lower-middle order batter and has excelled in that role under Ponting at Delhi Capitals.

The 32-year-old has scored 256 runs at a strike rate of 142 (from 12 innings) at number five since joining the Capitals in 2020, with only England limited-overs skipper Eoin Morgan managing more at that spot in the order (for Kolkata Knight Riders) in the past two iterations of the IPL.

In addition, Stoinis's four IPL knocks at number six over that period have yielded a strike rate of 195 with a best of 53 from 21 balls faced and Ponting believes the secret to getting the best out of the mercurial allrounder is handing him a clearly defined role.

All of Tim David's sixes from the 2020-21 BBL season

"The more I got to know him he's a very deep thinker and I was not wanting to feed him too much (information)," Ponting said of his relationship with Stoinis.

"I'd feed him little bits but then let him think about it and process it and come back to me and ask questions about what he needs to do next, or what he needs to do to get better.

"With Australia he's been in and out of the side, and not really found a spot in the batting line-up

"I've tried to make it pretty clear to him where I see him slotting in with the Delhi Capitals outfit and the certain role he's going to play for us.

"He is a hard worker. He likes to bat and bowl as much as an anyone we've had at Delhi, so as long as I give some clear direction and he understands what he's doing and what his role is, I just let him go about getting himself prepared.

"I'll only interfere with players' preparation if I think they're bludging and they're not doing the right thing.

"It's fair to say he does enjoy working under the way that I coach."

With the IPL set to resume its 2021 season later this month, having been rescheduled and relocated to the UAE after becoming a victim of India's COVID-19 crisis earlier in the year, Ponting will be in close proximity to his close mate Justin Langer's Australia team when they arrive in the Emirates.

But despite having worked alongside Langer as a consultant coach during Australia's 2019 World Cup campaign in the UK, Ponting has no plans to pursue additional coaching duties in the immediate future.

"It's too time consuming, where I'm at in my life," he said of the demands of full-time coaching.

"That's why I've chosen a bit of the IPL because it's in our off-season at home and generally, at best, an eight or nine-week commitment.

"And it doesn't get in the way of the Australian summer which is the other thing I love, my work with (Channel) Seven whether it be Big Bash or Test matches.

"I've found a nice little niche.

"If I can do stints with the Aussie team or another team during the Australian winter, then that's fine and that's how it worked out with that last World Cup that Justin asked me to be a part of."

2021 Men's T20 World Cup key info

Australia's squad

Aaron Finch (c), Ashton Agar, Pat Cummins (vc), Josh Hazlewood, Josh Inglis, Mitchell Marsh, Glenn Maxwell, Kane Richardson, Steve Smith, Mitchell Starc, Marcus Stoinis, Mitchell Swepson, Matthew Wade, David Warner, Adam Zampa. Travelling reserves: Dan Christian, Nathan Ellis, Daniel Sams

Australia's matches

Oct 23v South Africa in Abu Dhabi (2pm local time, 9pm AEDT)

Oct 28v Qualifier A1 in Dubai (6pm local time, 1am Oct 29 AEDT)

Oct 30v England in Dubai (6pm local time, 1am Oct 31 AEDT)

Nov 4v Qualifier B2 in Dubai (2pm local time, 9pm AEDT)

Nov 6v West Indies in Abu Dhabi (2pm local time, 9pm AEDT)

CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL 2021 ICC T20 WORLD CUP SCHEDULE

How teams are grouped

Round 1

Group A: Sri Lanka, Ireland, Netherlands, Namibia

Group B: Bangladesh, Scotland, Papua New Guinea, Oman

Super 12s

Group 1: England, Australia, South Africa, West Indies, A1, B2

Group 2: India, Pakistan, New Zealand, Afghanistan, B1, A2