Ponting ‘not surprised’ by Head omission

The shock omission of the dynamic left-hander precipitated a stir amongst followers and previous gamers, together with Steve Waugh, and this was amplified when his substitute Matt Renshaw was trapped lbw for a golden duck on day one of many Nagpur Test.

Ponting advised the ICC Review podcast that whereas he may perceive the dismay on the choice from some corners of Australian cricket, the writing had been on the wall for Head’s omission.

“The more I thought about it, the fact that they played Matt Renshaw in Sydney to me meant they probably had other plans in mind for him,” Ponting stated.

“Obviously, the most immediate plan was for him to bat in the middle order for Australia in this Test series against India.

“And when you look at that, if they’re going to keep him in, they couldn’t really afford to keep Travis Head in either because then they would have five left-handers in their top seven.”

Ponting stated retaining Head within the workforce at Peter Handscomb’s expense would have performed into the arms of India’s star off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin.

“The other side of it is that Travis’ record outside of Australia and on the subcontinent is nowhere near as good,” Ponting stated.

“So when you put all those pieces together, I actually wasn’t that surprised … there’s been a bit of an uproar here in Australia about ‘how could the selectors do this’?

“I know (Renshaw) was out first ball today, I’ll forgive him of that – the other thing to keep in mind is they’ve been over here for what is just about a week now, so they’ve done a lot of training, the coaches and selectors would’ve kept an eye on training and watched who was coping with the spin better than others.”

Ponting praised the strategy of Head’s different potential center order substitute Handscomb, who made 31 as Australia had been bowled out for 177 on the primary day.

India had been 1-77 in reply at stumps, with captain Rohit Sharma unbeaten on 56 from solely 69 deliveries.