The team let Ponting down: Katich by CricketArchive Staff Reporter

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Player:	SM Katich, RT Ponting
Event:	Australia in British Isles 2009

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DateLine: 28th August 2009

 

Australian opening batsman Simon Katich defended his underfire captain Ricky Ponting, saying the "players let him down" in Ashes.

 

"We probably let him (Ponting) down. We all had opportunities to help him get the right result and we didn't do that," Katich said at a Bradman Foundation lunch to celebrate the legend's 101st birth anniversary.

 

"I guess, having been involved in 2005, I thought I'd let him and the team down then. This time around, even though the tour went a bit better, I still feel there were things that I could have done better to have helped us win Test matches - and unfortunately I'm going to live to regret that," he was quoted as saying in the Australian media.

 

Katich, said he was disappointed that he could not contribute with bigger totals more often.

 

"I was disappointed I didn't convert a lot more of my starts. I felt like I was in pretty good form and, after the hundred (at Cardiff) I missed out on opportunities to convert more 40s and 50s into hundreds," he said.

 

"Even though they (England) might not have done it consistently throughout the five Tests, they did it at the crunch times when the games were up for grabs. And that's the difference in Test cricket: those moments came around and we didn't grab them," he said.

 

Katich also backed the selectors and said "They backed us and we didn't get the job done. Criticism is warranted and we have to grin and bear it now."