Former Australian captain Ricky Ponting has said cricket in the country has lagged behind other Australian sports because of some of the 'amateurish' aspects of the game, despite the Argus triggering major changes designed to return Australia to No.1 in the world.
Ponting revealed in his no-nonsense way about the current malaise plaguing Australian cricket, many of which are covered in his autobiography, At the Close of Play.
According to the Sydney Morning Herald, the national team is in a worse position now than it was when the Argus report was handed down in 2011, with Ponting saying that the Australian cricket team is lagging behind every single football club in the country, even the ones without any money.
Stating that the game has until recently missed out on the best coaches because it was not prepared to pay for them, Ponting further said that there is a big difference between what the coaches are the paid and the players' salaries, adding that until that starts to even out, cricket in the country will never attract the right people.
Lamenting that states became reluctant to send players to Cricket Australia's (CA) Centre of Excellence, where a 26 million-dollar upgrade is about to be unveiled, Ponting also said that unlike his time, youngsters are not being coached by the best mentors in the Centre for which they fail to show the required talent and hunger.
