Putting Demons to Rest

Just as the title suggests, someone put his demons to rest today. Australian skipper, Ricky Ponting scored his first century in India today at Bengaluru. 'Punter' (ponting) who has amassed runs all over the world averages just about 12 runs with just two half centuries to his name. Ponting has had two unsuccessfully tours to India and today he in his third trip showed the world that he is a class player who can and probably will (hopefully not if your an Indian like me) score runs in the matches to come.

Ponting is a player who tends to get into the front-foot a lot and that has been his un-doing in many instances. He likes the ball coming on to the bat and and tends to push at the spinners. Harbhajan Singh has dismissed him in nine out of ten times in India and the new (not so new now) pace sensation Ishant Sharma had troubled him deeply Down-under.

But today after walking in at number three to face only the fourth ball of the innings (Hayden was dismissed by Zaheer in the third ball) took lot of guts and nerves. Being watchful to the Indian seemers early in the innings, Ponting settled in.

Punter became the first person with 16 centuries as captain when he broke Sunil Gavaskar's record of centuries. The Tasmanian thoroughly enjoyed his knock and probably would rate it among his best even though it was one of his slower ones.

Ponting strung a crucial century partnership with Simon Katich and an another 60 runs with Micheal Hussey. Ponting then fell to his old nemesis, Harbhajan Singh trying a sweep shot. But by then the Aussie captain had scored 123 of 243 balls studded with 13 hits to the fence.

Australia ended the day at 254 for 4 with Ponting scoring the bulk of the runs. Surely he has struck form at last in India and it sure doesn't sound good if you are an Indian fan.

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Posted in: Australia,cricket,Harbhajan,Hussey,India,Ishant Sharma,Michael Clarke,Ponting,Simon Katich,Sunil Gavaskar,Zaheer Khan