India vs Australia 2018-19: Ricky Ponting Reveals His Australia Playing XI For Adelaide Test

Ahead of the much-awaited Test series between India and Australia, Ricky Ponting has picked his Australia playing eleven for the series-opener.

Australia will take on India in four Tests, starting December 6 at Adelaide. The hosts will have their task cut out against the world number one Test side in the absence of David Warner and Steve Smith. Both the players along with Cameron Bancroft are currently serving a lengthy ban for their involvement in the ball-tampering scandal. Smith and Warner’s bans will end in March next year while Bancroft’s ban will end in December this year.

In Warner’s absence, Ricky Ponting has backed Aaron Finch to open the innings.  The legendary batsman backed Finch to open the innings with uncapped Marcus Harris. He also backed Travis Head to retain his spot in the middle-order. At number three, Ponting backed Usman Khawaja who starred with the bat against Pakistan in UAE.

The former Australia skipper also backed Marsh brothers to retain their spots in the team despite poor outings in UAE. Ponting went on say that Victoria should let Finch open the innings in the upcoming Shield game.

“Victoria don’t want to break up their opening partnership – I think they should for Aaron Finch’s benefit,” Ponting told cricket.com.au. “I think they should let him open for one game and slide Travis Dean down.

“Just to give him red ball (practice) opening the batting before he goes into the Test match. If the coach asked Aaron Finch where he’d rather bat, I’m sure he’d say he’d want to open,” he added.

Ponting believes Harris, who has struck 437 runs at 87 in four Shield games this summer, is the right choice to partner Finch.

“I remember when he first came into the WA side, speaking to Justin Langer about him and he thought he was potentially an Australian player in the making,” Ponting explained.

“Things didn’t really work out for him in WA (but) he decides to move to Victoria and his last few seasons have been very good.

“No batsmen have really dominated domestic Sheffield Shield cricket over the last few years but if you look at the numbers and the way he’s performed this year, he deserves his chance to be opening the batting,” said the legendary skipper.

In Ponting’s XI, there would be four left-handed batsmen in the top five. It could potentially make things easy for India spin spearhead Ravichandran Ashwin.

When asked about it , he said:

“They’ve just got to pick their best batting line-up, simple as that.

“Don’t worry if they’re all left handed or if they’re all right handed,” he added. “They’ve got to find guys who are good consistent run-scorers, not just now, but there’s an Ashes series not far away and they need to show some faith in who they believe are the right people,” he added.

The four-Test series would get underway on December 6 at Adelaide.

Ricky Ponting’s XI for the first India Test:

Marcus Harris, Aaron Finch, Usman Khawaja, Shaun Marsh, Travis Head, Mitch Marsh, Tim Paine (c/wk), Mitchell Starc, Pat Cummins, Nathan Lyon, Josh Hazlewood.