New Oz 'split-innings' domestic ODI format will hurt World Cup preparations: Ponting
New Zealand Star
Saturday 4th September, 2010
(ANI)
Australian cricket captain Ricky Ponting is concerned that the preparation of some of the players currently outside the national team ahead of the World Cup will be hampered by the new domestic one-day format.
Cricket Australia recently announced domestic one-dayers will now be split into two innings of 20 and 25 overs in a break from the single innings 50-over format.
"We need to be playing as much 50 over cricket as we can with the World Cup just around the corner," The Sydney Morning Herald quoted Ponting, as saying.
"It'll be OK for the guys that are in the national side, we'll probably play another 12 or 13 one-dayers before the one-day World Cup comes around," he told reporters on Saturday.
"They guys on the fringe that are playing domestic cricket won't play any 50 over games really until that World Cup. Probably for the young spinners around Australia in particular, they're going to find it difficult this summer," Ponting said.
Ponting said he would have preferred if the players had been able to give more input before the changes were made.
"The players probably felt that they didn't have the input that they probably would have liked to have had," he said.
"I know there's been a lot of speculation about how it's going to be played, but it's up to the players now to play it as well as they can and make it a good spectacle," he added.
Ponting said he would likely play two Sheffield Shield games for Tasmania this summer, but would not play any domestic one-day matches. (ANI)
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