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#RandomCricketPhotosThatMakeMeHappy

Looks like an ordinary photograph of a Ponting pull, right? Well, let’s try to elevate this Ben Radford clicked photo from ordinary to something less ordinary with a story.

This is the picture of Ricky Ponting playing one of trademark pulls from the 1999 Barbados Test against West Indies which, thanks to Lara’s heroics, West Indies won by a single wicket. However, let’s stick to Ponting for the purpose of this post.

The match was played towards the end of March and the temperatures had begun soaring in the Caribbean. But that didn’t stop Ricky Ponting from going out to bat wearing a half-sweater or a woolly jumper.

He recalled later, “The night before the game I was lying in bed thinking I’ve scored two Test Hundreds and both times I wore my vest throughout, so I’m going to do that again, whatever the conditions.”

But realization of the reality set in quickly once he was out in the middle. He said, “After a while I was thinking. “Jeez, it’s sticky out here.” But there was no way I was taking it off.

Afterwards, I wondered if I was the first person to play a long innings in Barbados wearing a woollen vest. No one else would have been that silly.“

Well, the silliness did pay off for Punter as he hit his third century in the match, of course, wearing a jumper.

Another man who famously bowled in a jumper was Greg Mathews in the Madras heat in the Tied Test of 1986. That and many more interesting stories are being recollected here in this freshly released podcast episode ft. Vijay Lokapally. Do give it a listen.