The Punter of OZ

“Glory is not a conceit. It is not a decoration for valour. Glory belongs to the act of being constant to something greater than yourself, to a cause, to your principles, to the people on whom you rely and who rely on you in return.” – John McCain

Ricky Ponting is a man of extremities. He evokes emotions ranging from slavish respect to prejudiced resentment. A man any lesser in stature would probably have been buried by the amount of criticism that has been salvoed upon Ponting. Yet he stands tall among the ruins of individual disgrace distinguished by his talent, aggression, achievements and above all, a general disdain towards all the lesser mortals that seem peeved by his indifference to their opinion. Such men polarize all around them, either to take the flock to divinity that they themselves are ordained to or to perdition that is never too far away from their horizon. There is no half measure in the acts of these antiheroes, its either the full monty or monty be damned.
Ponting’s batting exploits are in the zones of Sir Don and Sir Don Jr, read Sachin Tendulkar. In fact, he has the second best Test batting average after Sir Don for Australia. Technically adequate and temperamentally aggressive, he has been the best batsman for Australia for over a decade now. His hooks are elegant, perhaps the only elegancy that is about him. His pulls are ferocious. For the modern cricket, he comes with all the armour, weapon and power. His rise from the Tasman countries to the Australian dressing room was all the way cheered through by the cricket greats of Australia. Initially carved out as a replacement for the ferocious David Boon, it became clear within a short time that it was the number three position where Ponting belonged. His first test innings saw him scoring 96 fluent runs against the likes of Chaminda Vaas and Muralitharan. Since then, he has been supremely consistent. Bear it in mind that from 1995 till 2010, he has never averaged below 40, year on year. In fact, he has averaged less than 50 in only 2 years and over 60 in 8 years. Coming to locations, barring India where he has an inexplicable average of 26, everywhere else he has performed well above the par. As of now this man stands with 95 international centuries and more than 25000 international runs. It is for him, that the multiple choice question of Best Batsman Ever will have 4 options. 1. Donald Bradman 2. Brian Lara 3. Sachin Tendulkar and 4. Ricky Ponting.

This article however is not to extol the virtues of this radical. Nor is it to bemoan his vices. It is but to find out what made the Punter what the Punter is. Was he a born nonconformist, aggressive at the risk of being a hedonist, a dissenter who would not acquiesce with the rules that bind him. Or did he grow into all this learning all along the way what his senior peers did with a conscious restraint. Ponting made his debut in one of the most controversial and infamous test series of our times. It was in this Australian tour of Sri Lanka, that the later to be legendary Muralitharan was called for suspect action. The acrimony between the Australian umpire and the Sri Lankan cricket administrators reached a fever pitch. The debutant was being exposed to one of the most heated frictions of world cricket. If this were not enough, the following ODI series saw more moments of madness with Sanath Jayasuriya raising the racism ghost against Glenn McGrath and the two almost starting a fist fight. Ian Healy joined the raucous not much later, shouting to the stump mike that Arjuna Ranatunga was too much of a fat bloke to be playing cricket. Australia won the match and the two teams walked out of the stadium without shaking hands, one of the most basic formalities of the Gentleman’s Game. The 1996 World Cup begun soon after and the impolite hostilities between these two teams bridled further till the finals. What was Ricky Ponting learning from all this? Remember that Australia had yet to attain their invincibility. This team was still getting beaten by the Pakistans and the West Indies. They had to toil every bit as hard as any other team to win a match. And they played rough. The desperation for victory did sometime tip the balance against the favour of decencies. When the elders of the pack decide to go beggars on fundamental mannerism the younger cannot be faulted for not removing their hats to the dames on the street. In fact, Ponting did exactly that. He was thrown out of a certain night club in Kolkata after misbehaving with some women. Surely, the effects were showing.

Further disgraces came at home with another fistfight and a black eye in a club. Add that to his admission of alcoholism, this career was going astray. But his batting skills and mental resolve on the field saw his sailing past these inadequacies. From the batting mainstay, he graduated to the roll of the captain. The Australian Invincibles were now being moulded. By the time India landed in Australia for the 2007-08 tour, many personal milestones aside Ponting had led the team to 14 consecutive test victories, one short of Steve Waugh’s previous record of 16. The first test went on expected lines with Australia winning comfortably. But the second saw the Indians give Ponting’s men a hard chase for their money. Victory came, so did the record of 16 consecutive victories. But Ponting descended to a new depth of behavioural low when he argued with the umpires like a mad man railing at his constraints to get Sourav Ganguly out. In the restlessness to celebrate, they forgot to shake hands with the opponents. A misunderstood invective from Harbhajan was taken by the Australians to create mayhem out of nothing. It took severe beating from the home media for the frenzy of Ponting to admit that something was wrong with this team. May be, success had just begotten them. The decline would follow soon. What would baffle cricket historians for times to come is why did one of the most successful test team of all time had this extreme penury of manners? Why did their captain have such rank pathetic view on decency?

Since the unsavoury incidents with the Indian team, Australia has had reduced success against the top test playing nations. Ponting has had the ignominy of suffering two Ashes losses. His personal form has also come under fire. But the Punter still has not lost his impatience with etiquettes. The last Ashes again saw him boiling up to the umpires against a decision of not out for Kevin Pietersen. The World Cup has seen Australia tasting humiliation after a long period of dominance. But the fire within the nonconformist has not blown out yet. He has sung his swan song to captaincy with a century of class. Grace, which had eluded him forever, caught up with him finally when he decided to step down as soon as the selector’s made their intentions clear. May be we will see a few more years of cricket’s arrogant kindergartener’s antics. May be he will give us a few more innings where irrespective of our team allegiances we will stand up and clap for a shot. May be he will rewrite a few more record book entries. But in-spite of all this, the Punter shall remain one of the most controversial geniuses of world cricket.

Till the next post…Au Revoir!!!