Ricky Ponting has handed 21-year-old Aussie talent Jake Fraser-McGurk a glowing praise having compared his potential path to Test cricket to that of David Warner. Fraser-McGurk has faced only 23 balls at international level having ripped into the West Indies bowling attack in Australia’s emphatic eight-wicket victory over the visitors in the third One Day International match.
The Victorian hit 41 off 18 balls in the contest, following six in the previous international. There has been plenty of hype around the 21-year-old who plays with a fearless approach at the top of the order.
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This has also seen him draw comparisons to Warner when the former opener emerged on the scenes as a white-ball specialist. Warner then carved out a stellar international career having played 112 Test matches for his country. And Ponting has doubled down on his earlier prediction that Fraser-McGurk needs to be exposed to all three forms of the game quickly if he is to follow in Warner’s footsteps.
“(Fraser-McGurk) is someone that can be well and truly fast-tracked through the Australian system,” Ponting said on Wednesday. “When we saw (Warner) at the start everyone doubted whether he’s going to be good enough to play Test cricket, technically.
“But with the talent and the skill that (Warner) had – Jake has got as much talent as David had come coming through … the earlier they can get him into the system (the better). Get him playing and letting him work out for himself the best way to have success in all the different formats.”
Ponting wasn’t the only Aussie batting great to laud Fraser-McGurk’s stunning entrance to international cricket. Steve Smith captained Australia to the series win with Pat Cummins taking a rest after the summer of cricket.
And Smith was full of praise for the aggressive style of the youngster. “He’s certainly not short of confidence and it’s cool to see someone come in and at the age of 21 just play with such freedom and no fear at all,” Smith said on Tuesday night.
Ricky Ponting joins US cricket franchise
Ponting was speaking aboutthe youngster after he was confirmed as coach of US Major League Cricket franchise Washington Freedom. Ponting joined the franchise on a two-year deal and will take over fellow Aussie Greg Shipperd as the head coach.
Ponting has moved into white-ball format coaching roles having initially joined the Mumbai Indians. He then joined the Delhi Capitals in 2018 and remains with the Indian Premier League franchise.
He will coach a number of Aussie cricketers in the team, including Ben Dwarshius, Moses Henriques and Josh Phillipe at the Freedom. Smith has also been linked to the franchise for some time.
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