Ricky Ponting backs Pat Cummins to replace Aaron Finch as Australia's next ODI captain
India Today
Former Australia skipper Ricky Ponting reckons Test skipper Pat Cummins would be leading the side in ODIs format after the retirement of Aaron Finch.
Two-time World Cup-winning skipper Ricky Ponting has backed Australia's Test captain Pat Cummins to replace Aaron Finch as the side's next ODI captain. Finch retired from ODIs during Australia's home series against New Zealand with less than a year to go before the 2023 ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup in India.
"I think it’ll be Pat Cummins, to be honest," Ponting told host Sanjana Ganesan on The ICC Review.
"I know he doesn’t play all the ODIs for obvious reasons, because his workload in Test cricket has been, like all the fast bowlers, very high in the last few years.
"I know they are very conscious of making sure that they’ve got Cummins, (Josh) Hazlewood and (Mitchell) Starc 100 percent fit and healthy for the big Test series to come around.
"But look, I'd be surprised if it wasn’t Pat Cummins."
Steve Smith was stripped of the captaincy and banned from leading Australia for two years, while his deputy Warner was handed a lifelong leadership ban for their roles in the 2018 ball-tampering scandal in South Africa.
"I’m just basing this on what’s happened with Steve Smith he is now the Test vice-captain again, having been the captain and really at the center of the whole controversy in Cape Town," Ponting noted.
