Michael Clarke: I saved Ricky Ponting from selectors’ axe

Ricky Ponting has admitted he probably played a couple of years too long as his form tailed off towards the end of his Test career, but Michael Clarke was glad to have the Aussie legend by his side for as long as he did.

Ponting stepped down as captain in 2011 and Clarke, his vice-captain at the time, ascended to the throne. While his output with the bat wasn’t as prolific as it was during his heyday, Ponting remained committed to staying on and nursing the next generation of cricketers through the ranks.

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It may have been awkward for Clarke to take the reins with his former skipper still in the team, but that’s not how he saw it. The New South Welshman wanted Ponting to remain on deck as much for his experience as his ability.

Speaking to former NRL star Brett Finch on his Uncensored podcast, Clarke said when he took over as captain the selectors asked him if he wanted Ponting to be axed, because they were willing to move him on and give the new leader clear air.

But the man known as “Pup” wasn’t having a bar of it.

“When I took over the captaincy, that’s why I fought to keep Ricky,” Clarke told Finch.

“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 per cent, he was better than anybody else at No. 3 or No. 4.

“We think the grass is greener all the time, Very rarely is it.”

Ponting stayed on as a specialist batsman, playing six more Test series under Clarke before eventually retiring in late 2012.

Clarke wanted Ponting by his side even after the changing of the guard.Source:News Limited

Ponting wrote in his 2013 autobiography he didn’t feel he was always supported by Clarke as vice-captain as well as he could have been, and Clarke admitted as much himself in his own book a few years later.

Talking to Finch, the 40-year-old said he found it hard to be someone’s understudy because of the inevitable waiting game that created.

“I dreamt of playing for Australia but I never dreamt of captaining Australia,” Clarke said.

“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.”

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