Not sure if this is all a storm in a tea cup, but Shane Warne’s tweet about the field placings to Nathan Hauritz’s bowling didn’t appear to go down too well with Ricky Ponting earlier today.
Warne said on Twitter “How the hell can hauritz bowl to this field ?? Feeling for hauritz , terrible !! What are these tactics ? Sorry Ricky but what are you doing”.
Pretty strong criticism from Warne.
I’ve always thought that when Shane Warne gives his opinion, that it is usually a constructive view, not just someone aimlessly rambling and bad mouthing someone, but I’m not too sure what to make of this one.
Ricky Ponting says Hauritz sets his own field. If this is the case and the field was that bad, then why didn’t Ponting change it? Which suggests to me that Ponting did have some influence in the field placings.
If both Ponting and Hauritz were happy with the field placings, then the difference of opinion would suggest that someone, either these two, or Shane Warne is badly out of touch with how to set a field.
Personally, I think I would trust Warne.
The reason why I say I’m not sure if this is constructive criticism from Warne is because I always got the feeling that there was a bit of friction between the two over the captaincy.
In the 2005 Ashes series, Ponting’s captaincy came in for some fierce criticism at times. At the same time there was continued talk about how Shane Warne was the real leader of the team and about how he was the best captain Australia never had.
At times Warne seemed to carry the side during that series and maybe this still rankles with him a bit.
Also, Ponting never really had to be a good captain back in those days such was the talent he had at his disposal and maybe Warne didn’t rate him and sees this as his chance to let him know publicly what he thought.
Will be intersting to see if this esculates into a bigger story, it wouldn’t be just what England would be wanting to see just before the start of the Ashes, would it!