Winning Adelaide Test will be Ponting’s greatest challenge: Warne

ADELAIDE - Former Australian leg-spinner Shane Warne believes that the host team’s bid to win the second Ashes Test in Adelaide will be skipper Ricky Ponting’s greatest challenge.

According to Warne, the task of getting Australia to regroup and focus will be a tremendous one for Ponting, after the draw in Brisbane.

“This is the biggest test of Ricky Ponting’s leadership of men,” Warne wrote in the London Telegraph.

“It is fine to dissect the tactical side of his captaincy but this is now about something different. It is about picking up his players after a hammering in the field. It is a hard one for any captain, but he has to stand up and be counted and try to inspire his team,” Warne adds.

Warne also reckoned that Ponting needed to get a little less flighty as a leader, having made too many changes in his efforts to get wickets in Brisbane.

He urged Tasmanian left-arm spinner Xavier Doherty to add a little more variety to his repertoire.

“In Test matches like this one when the quicks are not dominating you need the spinner to dry up one end. But if you want to know why both sides have been able to build partnerships, it is because Graeme Swann and Doherty were not able to keep it tight. You need a spinner to come in and take a wicket or two and stop these partnerships from developing,” Warne said.

“We have seen enough to know he can spin the ball and can play a role. If he plays at Adelaide then he needs to work on how to mix up an over. At the moment he bowls three or four faster ones. It needs to be the other way round,” Warne said. (ANI)