‘Boxing Day Ashes Test would be make-or-break Test of Ponting’s colossal career’

SYDNEY - The Boxing Day Ashes Test in Melbourne would be a ‘make-or-break’ Test of Australian captain Ricky Ponting’s brilliant career, according to a noted cricket columnist.

Ponting will miss the Test if he fails to recover from a finger injury picked up during the third-Test defeat of England at Perth’s WACA Ground.

The 36-year-old fractured the little finger in his left hand on day three while attempting to claim an edge at slip off Jonathan Trott.

He failed to take to the field on day four as Australia wrapped up a 267-run victory to level the five-match series at 1-1.

Writing in the Herald Sun, Ron Reed said: “Broken though it is, Ponting’s little finger on his left hand would have to be intensely painful for him to miss Boxing Day at the MCG.”

“No way is he going to lightly or willingly walk away from the biggest occasion - and possibly the most important match - of his colossal career. Yes, that’s how huge this one is going to be,” he added.

Reed further said that if England wins in Melbourne, the Ashes would be gone again with no prospect of salvaging the situation a second time.

“If that happens Ponting’s captaincy, perhaps even his career, will be mortally wounded, his place in history cruelly compromised,” Reed wrote.

“Even if it occurs without him participating, he will go down with the ship, as all captains do, wearing the ignominy of losing the Ashes three times,” he added. (ANI)