‘Superstar’ Cameron Green best young player I’ve seen since Ricky Ponting, claims Greg Chappell

More and more people are jumping into the Cameron Green bandwagon with every passing day and, as things stand, young Cameron getting his Baggy Green in the next few months seems like an inevitability. A versatile all-rounder who can win matches with both bat and ball, Green has been racking up quite the numbers with his willow. 

“This is a serious player, this is a special player. He is the best young player I’ve seen since Ricky Ponting. He is our next superstar,” Chappell told The Australian.

“You just have to pick him now before he breaks his back and he can’t play. My greatest fear about him is that everyone gets excited about his bowling and the kid can bowl, he is a rare talent there as well. But you know that if he bowls 20 to 30 overs a game for Western Australia he will break.”

The reference to Green breaking his back stems from the youngster, who can clock up to 140 kph and boasts a SR of 41.3 in red-ball cricket, having temporarily stopped bowling due to having suffered a stress fracture. His fitness aside, there are also fears that Green is too raw and undeveloped to be fast-tracked to the national side. But Chappell claimed that legends of the country, including the likes of himself, Ponting, Bradman and Warner, were all handed caps before they were ready, and batted for the inclusion of the 21-year-old.

“When I hear people say he isn’t ready now I ask them if they were ready when they played and nobody was. You are not ready until you play 10, 15, 20 Tests matches and then you work it out if you are good enough.”

Having not bowled a single ball in over a year, Green is expected to start bowling sparsely across the upcoming Shield matches. It remains to be seen if the youngster will be named as a part of the Australian squad for the Border-Gavaskar Trophy versus India.