Melbourne: Cooped up at home, former Australia captain Ricky Ponting is using the time to share some of his career memorabilia on social media, and the ace batsman started with his 2003 World Cup final bat.
“Given we’ve all got a bit of time on our hands as we stay at home, thought I’d go through what I’ve kept from my career and share some of it with everyone on a regular basis — this is the bat I used in the 2003 World Cup final,” Ponting said in a tweet with the picture of the bat.
Given we've all got a bit of time on our hands as we stay at home, thought I'd go through what I've kept from my career and share some of it with everyone on a regular basis – this is the bat I used in the 2003 World Cup final. pic.twitter.com/meoBP6NJvg
— Ricky Ponting AO (@RickyPonting) March 23, 2020
March 23, 2003, Ponting led Australia to the World Cup title by scoring an unbeaten 140 as his marauding side won by 125 runs against India skippered by Sourav Ganguly in Johannesburg.
Ponting had recently said that the infamous ‘monkeygate’ episode was the lowest point of his captaincy stint with Australia.
During the Sydney Test of 2007-08 Border-Gavaskar Trophy, Andrew Symonds had accused Harbhajan Singh of calling him a ‘monkey’, a claim which the Indian off-spinner had denied.
“Monkeygate was probably the lowest (point in career as captain). Losing the 2005 Ashes series was tough but I was in full control of that. But I wasn’t in full control of what happened during the Monkeygate thing,” Ponting told on the Sky Sports podcast.
“It was a low point and also because it dragged on for so long. I remember coming off the ground during the Adelaide Test match and speaking to Cricket Australia officials about the case because the hearing was at the end of the Adelaide Test match.”
Ponting led Australia to 48 and 164 wins in 77 Tests and 228 ODIs respectively.
IANS