Journalism of Courage
Ricky Ponting said that Matt Renshaw, who was excluded from the recently announced Australian squad for the Ashes, should not think too much abouth this and “go back to the basics.” “Go back to Shield cricket, focus on some of the things he focused on before when he’d been successful and be patient,” the former Australian captain is quoted as saying by cricket.com.au, “It’ll come back for him, I’m sure.” Renshaw is considered one of the most promising batting talents in Australia but the 21-year-old has hit a bad patch of form and scored just 70 runs in six innings in the Sheffield Shield.
Australian skipper Steve Smith said that “the Ashes isn’t a place where you need to be trying to find your form” and that is the reason why Renshaw has been dropped. It is something that Ponting has experienced being dropped. He made his Test debut in 1995 and was dropped less than a year later. It took him four long years for him to cement his place and he has since gone on to become arguably Australia’s greatest batsman since Sir Don Bradman. “The thing I learned most was not to be in too big a rush to get back there,” Ponting said.
“When you have a taste of Test cricket you don’t ever want to let go of what that feeling is like and what it’s all about to play Test matches for your country. When I first got dropped my whole mindset was ‘I’ll go back to Shield cricket, I’ll make a hundred in this next game, I’ll make a hundred in the game after that and before you know it I’ll be back in the Test team.’ Funnily enough, the harder you try to push something like that and the faster you make things happen the longer it takes. That was a lesson that I learned from it.”
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