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Journalism of Courage
Anyone would think that at the age of 29, Ricky Ponting would have, as Australia’s captain, been satisfied at turning up for the toss and saying his party piece for the TV and then watch openers Adam Gilchrist and Mathew Hayden flog the bowling.
It is an easy enough scenario. After all this is the World Cup 2003 final, the show event of the year in South Africa. And Australia soon in control, belting the bowling around and making a healthy meal of the breakfast and lunch served up by the waiters wearing blue as well as a scowl as it all started going wrong.
Saurav Ganguly unhappy and the rest of the team grumbling, and wondering about the gambit to put the Aussies in to bat. Zaheer Khan bowling a real mulligatawny soup mix; wides and no balls extending the over and suddenly the time factor came in to play.
Anyone who takes almost two overs to bowl one, creates a serious problem. By the time Ponting reached the crease, Ganguly had switched his bowlers around. It was not going to plan. Winning the toss was all right. But asking the Australians to bat first was always going to be a gamble.
So, when Ponting joined Hayden, it was time for the real party piece to start. At 125 for two, India were back in with a chance. Another wicket at this point and it would have been an interesting game: the balance of World Cup final power resting with India. All it needed was for another wicket to fall and the game would have been on. Damien Martyn or Ponting: it did not really matter.
That was the last chance India had. Ponting looked around the field and started to work out what was needed to build a competitive total; to take the edge off the bowling and place the World Cup champions in control. It was entertaining and robust with a touch of Australian workmanship. There was skill and there was the need to accelerate the run-rate when needed.
It was the sort of controlled display which has become so pronounced in Australian batting and it showed as Martyn was quickly to his half-century off 46 balls. Pointing though worked the ball around; it was picnic park stuff as the bowling and then the fielding became ragged and was then reduced to a punch bag.
Sir Donald Bradman and Sid Barnes used the same ruthless approach in 1946-47 when batting against Walter Hammond’s England, and the following season, when India were on tour of Australia and Bradman and Barnes again gave a display of their brutal run-making abilities.
Ponting had that air about his batting in the final. His footwork carried a touch magic and his ability to take on the bowling and score almost at will showed the desperate state to which the Indian bowling had been reduced.
There was a calculation about his style of batting which lifted this innings above most other efforts in this World Cup. It beat the 138 scored by West Indian Clive Lloyd at the Lord’s final in 1975 against Australia and the 359 for two is a record final score as the Bullring roared in appreciation of Ponting’s batting ability.
As a bit of a punter himself, he would have supported his gameplan to go after the bowling; after all there was nothing to lose. What he produced was a display to match the occasion of a final: glittering strokeplay laced with the smooth control of a batsman who knows where to hit the ball.
If a final is all about showmanship, Ponting had the stage where to parade his skills and, as Javagal Srinath saw another six disappear into the crowd, the feeling of a match already lost was becoming a little hard to accept for some of the hundreds who flew in from India to watch their team’s bowling flogged to all parts of the Wanderers.
