Ricky Ponting Heaps High Praise On Marcus Stoinis, Impressed With The All-Rounder's Improvement In The Past 12 Months

Former Australia captain, Ricky Ponting has lauded Marcus Stoinis for his brilliant all-round display in the last year after being dropped from the national team. Stoinis is selected for the limited-overs matches against India.

He will be competing for a place in the eleven with seam-bowling allrounders; Moises Henriques, Daniel Sams, and Cameron Green while Glenn Maxwell and Ashton Agar are the spin-bowling all-rounders.

Australia will host India for six white-ball games and four Test matches. The 3-match ODI series commences on 27th November followed by 3 T20Is.

The much-awaited Border-Gavaskar series will begin on 17th December with a day-night Test in Adelaide followed by the Boxing Day Test in Melbourne, New Year’s Test in Sydney, and the last Test match in Australia’s fortress, Brisbane.

He’s a five times better player than he was 12 months ago: Ricky Ponting

After the 2019 World Cup, Marcus Stoinis was dropped from the Australian team. However, on the back of a stunning Big Bash League, he made his way back into the team. For Melbourne Stars in the Big Bash League, the opener amassed 705 runs.

In the recently concluded IPL, Stoinis displayed his all-round skills and is in contention to start in the eleven against India. For Delhi Capitals in the IPL, he scored 352 runs and picked 13 wickets.

Ricky Ponting recently said that Stoinis had shown improvements from the moment he arrived in the IPL. Ponting, the head coach of Delhi Capitals recognized the all-rounders’ spark in his early net sessions. He opined that Stoinis has become five times a better player than he was a year ago.

Ricky Ponting said to cricket.com.au, “From the moment he turned up at the IPL, having come straight from England he was pretty keen to show me improvements that he’d made. And his first few net sessions, I could just tell then,”

“Having spent a fair bit of time with him over the past couple of years, what I saw from him at the IPL suggests to me that he’s a five times better player than he was 12 months ago,” he added.

The former World Cup-winning captain feels that Stoinis should keep opening in T20 cricket. He understands that the right-hander can do the finishing role as well. Ponting reckons that the more responsibility the 31-year-old will get, the better he will become. The legendary batsman hopes to see more of the burly all-rounder in the series against India.

“I think the future for him either at Delhi or whoever he plays for in T20 cricket will be at the top of the order. I think he can do (the finishing role). I think he’s proven that he can do multiple different roles now,” said Ponting.

“And I think the more responsibility he gets in the white-ball team, the better he’ll be as well. We’ll see what happens over the next few weeks (against India), but if he gets a decent chance at it, I think he’ll impress everyone,” he added.

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