Ponting needs to show patience in India - Chappell

Ricky Ponting needs to show more patience and caution at the start of his innings if he is to reverse his terrible batting record in India, according to former Australian captain Ian Chappell.

"Ponting's desire to dictate gets him into a bit of trouble in India," Chappell was quoted as saying in the Herald Sun. "He hasn't displayed the patience required at the start of an innings when you are facing good spinners in India."

Ponting has scored only 172 runs in 14 innings in India at an average of 12.28. He was tormented by Harbhajan Singh during the 2001 tour, falling to the offspinner five out of five times, and played only one Test - in which he scored 11 and 12 - on the 2004 tour because of injury.

However, Ponting hasn't struggled on the rest of the subcontinent. He averages 65.70 in six Tests in Sri Lanka and scored 119 in his only Test in Pakistan.

"He tends to push out at the ball when defending rather than letting the ball come to him," Chappell said. "Good players of spin reach out to smother the spin in attack, but in defence let the ball come to them. Ponting has been dismissed for so many low scores; he hasn't found a method that will allow him to survive this danger period.

"The important things ... are finding a survival method, watching the ball off the pitch really closely, working out what shots you can and can't play, and learning you have a fraction of a second longer to play the ball off the pitch when compared to Australia."

In his column in the Australian, Ponting said he was hoping to rectify his poor record in India, and wrote about his experience in 2001. "The one thing that brought me undone was that I didn't trust my technique enough," he said. "I got out in my first innings in a way that I shouldn't have and from then on I tried not to do it again, but every time I tried something different I got out again.

"It's a matter of me trusting my technique. I have a reasonable record in Sri Lanka and everywhere else the ball has spun. India is the one place that has brought me undone."