'Ponting was captaining but realised his batting let the team down': Harbhajan compares Williamson with Australia great
Harbhajan recalled Ponting's 2013 season at the Mumbai Indians where the team failed win matches amid his woeful form which urged him to relinquish his position and drop himself for the team.
Kane Williamson's captaincy in the ongoing 2022 Indian Premier League (IPL) has been highly criticised by many veteran cricketers and analysts especially after the team's loss against Kolkata Knight Riders earlier last week. This has come amid his struggling form this season where he has scored just 208 runs at a dismal strike rate of just 92. And former India cricketer Harbhajan Singh, comparing Williamson's struggle with that Australia cricket legend Ricky Ponting, wants the New Zealand cricketer to step down from SRH captaincy for the remainder of the season. (Follow IPL 2022 full coverage)
Harbhajan recalled Ponting's 2013 season at the Mumbai Indians where the team failed win matches amid his woeful form which urged him to relinquish his position and drop himself for the team.
"Something similar happened with Ricky Ponting in 2013. He was captaining the team but he realized that he was letting the team down with his batting. So after 5-6 games, he himself stepped down and became a part of the think tank and we won the title that year," he told Sportskeeda before the start of SRH's game against Mumbai Indians at the Wankhede Stadium.
"Williamson should think of handing the captaincy to someone else and focus on his batting. If he wants to be the captain again, he can come back next year," he added.
SRH had indeed made a superb comeback in IPL 2022 last month winning five in a row to rise to the second spot in the table, but lost all their next five matches, played this month, to slip back to the eighth spot. With 10 points from 12 games, SRH still have a bleak chance of making the playoffs.
For the match against Mumbai, SRH made a tactical change as Williamson revealed after the toss that he would bat down the order and promote young Priyam Garg as the opener alongside Abhishek Sharma.