Ponting Concedes He Has Played His Last ODI


Sydney, Feb 21 (IANS): Ricky Ponting Tuesday conceded that he might have played his last One-day International after being dropped from the Australian side for the remainder of the tri-series and said his focus will now be on Tests besides playing state cricket for Tasmania.

Ponting was overlooked by the selectors Monday after making 18 runs in his last five innings. The former captain said he did not expect to play in the 50-over format again as selectors have decided to give more opportunities to the youngsters ahead of the 2015 World Cup.

"It is a little bit hard to come here today and say I am retiring when I have already been left out of the side," Ponting told reporters here. "I don't expect to play one-day international cricket for Australia any more and I am pretty sure the selectors don't expect to pick me either," said a veteran of 375 ODIs and someone who was thrice part of the World Cup winning including the 2003 and 2007 edition when was captain.

Ponting will leave the ODI format as Australia's most capped player, making 13,704 runs at an average of 42.03, second only to master blaster Sachin Tendulkar.

The 37-year-old, however, said he still had a role to play in the longest format and will be preparing hard for the West Indies tour next month.

"I will continue playing Test cricket and I will continue playing for Tasmania as well. I have proved to myself and to everybody else that I am still capable of dominating Test cricket as I did in the last series against India. I am looking forward to getting back and playing the last couple of Shield games for Tasmania this year and then heading to the West Indies hopefully with some runs under my belt," said Ponting, who silenced his critics by scoring two hundreds and thee half centuries in the four-match Test series against India.

Talking about his loss of form in ODIs, Ponting said: "My body has been able to get through the rigours of this summer really well and I think my mind has just been a little bit behind where my body has been.

"When you are not as sharp as you need to be at international level, then you can expect you are not going to play as well as you like either.

"The thing with the Test summer for me, yes I spent a lot of time in the middle and yes I made a lot of runs, but the work I had to do outside to get my game back to where it was towards the end of the Test series I have had to work harder than ever in my career and I worked harder than everybody else in the Australian team right through the last 12 months. At some stage that was going to catch up with me and I think just being not quite as sharp as I needed to be at the start of the one day series has played a bit of a part in why I haven't scored those runs."

  

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