Cricket: Australia’s Marcus Stoinis eager to continue floating experiment against India

Sydney: Aggressive Australia all-rounder Marcus Stoinis is confident he could become the ultimate floating batsman in limited-overs cricket after a successful stint opening in the Indian Premier League.

Stoinis, who has fashioned a successful career as a hard-hitting middle-order batsman who can close out an innings, was promoted to open for the Delhi Capitals by coach Ricky Ponting on their journey to the final in the UAE.

Ponting has now joined Justin Langer’s staff for the limited-overs series against India that starts on November 27 in Sydney and Stoinis has told the former Australia captain he is willing to continue with the flexibility experiment.

“Punter’s (Ponting) a big believer in me and wants to give me responsibility in the teams that he’s been in charge of, but I’ve got to be adaptable,” Stoinis said. “I’m just happy to be involved wherever they feel I can have my biggest impact in the game.

“Whether that’s at the top or the middle ... and I’ve had these conversations with Ricky and said ‘just let me know and I’ll put the pads on’.”

Stoinis, who scored 352 runs in this year’s IPL at a strike rate of 148.52, added that Ponting had proven to be a major factor in helping him improve his batting while in the UAE.

“The confidence he instils, the way he teaches you, he’s as good as you’ll get,” Stoinis said.

“I don’t think he’s in the business of changing careers but like all those good coaches you don’t really know you’re being coached until you look back and realise (what he did was) important.”

Australia and India play three one-day internationals and three Twenty20 matches in Sydney and Canberra before a four-Test series starts in Adelaide on December 17.