Great Interview by Ponting

[jackal786]

http://www.rediff.com/money/2006/nov/02pont.htm

[infamous9383]

nice interview altought some of the questions were pretty lame

[OZGOD]

From the interview:

Australia tends to play as a team and yet there are stars in your team. How do you manage your stars? How do you ensure that people can rise above their egos and play as a team? Ponting: Yes you are right. Man management in our team is vital and is very important. A lot of that work is done by me and by the coach, and I see that as the most important facet of captaincy - that you can't manage people well unless you understand them well. For instance, I could say that I get to address the team and with what I say, six of the guys will interpret the same message differently and have a different take. So, I have to know the right way to communicate with the guys to get the best out of them and that's the constant battle that you have within a cricket team. For me to understand everyone's personality certainly helps me get the best out of them and that's vital. Do you have to invest a lot of time in getting to know these guys off the cricket field? Ponting: Yes you do and it's a big part of my job and say though we are together for probably 9 or 10 months of a year, so I do have a great opportunity to know the guys very well. Whatever team sport you play, whether it being in the under 9 school team or under 17 inter-state team, you have to fit into the team. If you do not fit in, you just don't make it in Australian sport. So, when these players directly come into the Australian team, they have got a great idea of team culture, what it means to be a part of the team. So guys put their egos aside, then get in and do what is required and what they know is right for the rest of the team, and they know if they do that, they will make themselves better players and end up being a more successful part of a successful team. But is it really that easy to do, even if I am brought up in a culture, which ensures that I put team spirit above everything else? Ponting: I don't care where I'm ranked in world rankings - it doesn't matter. I play the game to do the best that I can do for my team and hopefully win a lot of games in cricket - that's why I play and that's why the Australian players play. In situations that arise in games, I can't think of a time when certain individual players ever put themselves before their team and you just can't afford to do that with the way the game is played at the moment. You've got to win every game and if you don't win every game, then it's going to come back on individuals in a team anyway. So collective interest serves individual interest? Ponting: Absolutely, no doubt.

[jackal786]

It explains how hard one has to work to become a world beating side! Beating no.1 team here and there and claiming "we won the ashes" is easy thing to do. But it is much harder to maintain that status.