- Ricky Ponting wasd surprised by Fraser-McGurk’s World Cup omission.
- Fraser-McGurk has been in excellent form in the IPL.
- Ponting believes Fraser-McGurk could have opened the innings with Head.
Ricky Ponting, the former captain of Australia, expressed his “surprise” at Jake Fraser-McGurk’s omission from the Australian squad for the T20 World Cup 2024, scheduled to take place in the United States and West Indies starting June 1.
Fraser-McGurk has been performing exceptionally well in the ongoing Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024, scoring 309 runs in just seven innings with a remarkable strike rate of 235.87, ranking him fourth in the tournament.
Ponting, currently serving as the head coach for Delhi Capitals (DC), suggested that the young player could have been a valuable addition to the Australian team, potentially opening the innings with Travis Head in the World Cup.
“Everyone’s been pretty impressed with Jake Fraser Mcgurk, he’s an ultra-talented kid, and I was a little surprised he was not included in the Australian squad. Had he and Travis Head walked out together it would have been something else,” the World Cup-winning captain shared during a press conference.
Despite not being selected for Australia’s World Cup team, Fraser-McGurk harbors no regrets. He feels that he wasn’t in a position to assume he had secured a spot in the 15-man squad.
“The communication was really good,” Fraser-McGurk shared on the Willow Talk podcast. “There are two ways you can look at it. You can look at it through, ’this is what I’ve done to prove my case,’ and then there’s also, ’look, a month and a half ago I wasn’t even in the picture.’
“They probably had a good idea of what [the squad] was a month and a half ago, trying to build that and get the connection in the team. And it’s also hard to fit in. You’ve got David Warner, our best opener ever in three formats. You’ve got Travis Head, who is lighting it up over here and has lit it up over the past 18 months.
“I can’t really see myself batting five or six because we’re pretty set there with Tim David, Cam Green and those sort of blokes. That’s the way I think about it. That’s fine,” he concluded.
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