Former Australian captain Ricky Ponting certainly ended his career as one of the all-time greats, after scoring 71 international tons across formats, only behind Sachin Tendulkar’s behemoth tally of 100 tons.
Also, Ponting was one of the finest players of spin and often troubled the Indian bowling attack with his stupendous knocks.
‘Punter’, in the twilight of his career, beautifully read the spin of Ravichandran Ashwin during the 2011 India tour of Australia.
In his recent interaction with Pakistani journalist Mazher Arshad, Ashwin was asked to decipher why he could not dismiss Ponting in 256 deliveries and conceded 148 runs in the four-match series.
“I think the sample size is very less. I think I might have played very little against Ricky Ponting. In the Adelaide Test, he was dropped twice, I remember it very clearly. In the Sydney Test, he made some runs, I bowled very less against him in Melbourne. But in Adelaide and Sydney, I bowled longer to him,” Ashwin told Mazher in a video uploaded on the latter’s Youtube channel.
“Ricky Ponting is a great batsman, I was a newcomer at the time. I really take pride when someone plays me really well, I try to counter them as period goes on. That’s international cricket. You adapt. When you do well, you learn, when you don’t do well, you learn harder,” Ashwin added.
“For me, I always thought Ricky Ponting was a fine, fine batsman. I also thought he wanted to go out on a high, he didn’t have any pressure at that point of time when we went to Australia. I was still new into my art, I was still learning my game,” he further said.
“I don’t see anyone as someone who is the best batsman in the world, or very difficult to bowl at. Yes, you will have good days and bad days. If someone plays you well, you have to learn and get better,” Ashwin concluded.
