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Ponting, speaking to ESPNcricinfo on Tuesday, highlighted another contributing factor. “Being a day game, the ball swung and seamed a little bit. So batsmen will have to keep that in mind, how they start their innings and maybe just lower expectations on scores. 240 was sort of a score that you were aiming to get in the IPL. It’s probably not going to be that for the first part of the tournament here in New York. So that sets a whole lot of different challenges.”
Ponting, who arrived in New York this week from Australia and is part of the ICC’s commentary panel, believed that expectations needed to be tempered especially considering it wasn’t that long ago that a different high-profile T20 tournament was throwing up scores in excess of 250.
“I’ve heard Damian Hough quoted post the first game here in New York about his whole vision for this wicket was to try and even up the contest between bat and ball,” Ponting said. “And certainly, there’s no hiding the fact in the first game [between SL and SA] it was probably just a little bit swayed in the bowler’s favour. But the other thing we have to be a little bit mindful of is we have probably all been a little bit spoiled of watching the run fests in the IPL over the last couple of months where we had probably the extreme opposite.”
“The other thing we have to be a little bit mindful of is we have probably all been a little bit spoiled of watching the run fest in the IPL over the last couple of months where we had probably the extreme opposite.”
Ricky Ponting
“Certainly, it doesn’t look like a place where you can score easily,” he said. “So, we’ve got to be a little mindful of that and see what best we can do. We are all coming off playing an IPL where a lot of runs were scored. So, it’s important to have that balance, understand what is required here. It’s certainly not going to be an IPL kind of scores here. We are very mindful of that. And we just need to assess as quickly as possible and then bring your game into the picture.”
“I actually think on the back of the 50-over World Cup [in India last year], the wickets through this last IPL were just outstanding,” he said. “And the grounds are obviously not getting any bigger and these modern-day players are becoming very adept at power-hitting and going from ball one and carrying it on. So as this tournament progresses, we will see the wickets get a whole lot better here. But we also got to keep in mind what the curator’s trying to do here. He is trying to even up the contest. So the teams are just going to have to adapt and adjust and play accordingly.”
‘Wickets in Caribbean could slow down toward back end’
While he is confident that teams would be able to score over 200 as the T20 World Cup carries on, Ponting felt the pitches in the West Indies are likely to become slow towards the business end of the tournament.
“In previous years, certainly in CPL competitions as well, the wickets have been quite low and quite slow and aided spin. They will try to get away from that. I have got a feeling that the wickets will probably start really good in the Caribbean, and they might start to slow down towards the back end of the tournament, but we will have to wait and see there.”
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