Ponting needs to brush up his history

In an interview with Cricinfo, Ricky Ponting announced that Australia were ready to avenge the defeat in the 2005 Ashes. He was numerically correct when he said

It was a pretty good year for us. We played 15 Test matches and lost two, so it wasn't all bad.

The problem for him was that those two test matches lost Australia the series. It is a bit like Ganguly proclaiming that India played so many one-dayers in the 2003 World Cup and lost only two, both to eventual winners Australia. The fact that one of them happened to be the final is not worth considering, perhaps. Mark Taylor would no doubt have invited derision if he'd said something similar about the 1996 World Cup when Australia only lost two games, one of which was a forfeit and the other was the small matter of the final, both games going to Sri Lanka, the eventual winners. Martin Crowe would have found it very tough to mollify New Zealand's supporters by claiming that New Zealand's 1992 World Cup campaign wasn't too bad, considering the team lost only two games, both to Pakistan, the victorious team.

Nice coincidence that, isn't it? All three examples I provided had the teams losing twice to the eventual World Cup winners!

What is it about captains and the recent statements indicating a strong need to brush up on some history?

Labels: forfeit