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Ricky Ponting always reminds us of the spoilt youngest daughter in a story about an upper class family set in the Fifties. She’s short, ridiculously spoilt and on the rare occasions she doesn’t get her way, she shrieks and shrieks and her facial expression becomes unavoidably punchable.
One of the delights of this Ashes series has been watching Ricky spitting out his dummy about once every five minutes. Sometimes it’s justified, like when England’s twelfth man and physio came out to waste time at the end of the first Test. Sometimes it’s unjustified, like when he questions the umpires for about an hour after every single decision against his team. Whichever it is, it’s always an absolute joy to see his little munchkin face crease up as he tries to fight back the tears.
If someone brings out a DVD of Ponting’s finest bottom lip wobbling moments, we’ll get a stack of chicken wings, a raft of biltong and a barrel of beer in and you can all come round to experience celestial perfection.
All true, but if Australia win this, and I think they will, it will be due to Strauss’s lacking the confidence to enforce the follow-on. Ponting may whinge a bit but he knows when to go in for the kill.
I like the idea of the beer, but the choice of food seems wrong for a whingefest.
Nachos would be good. And perhaps some turkey twizzlers to provide the meat content.
And some raisins of course – dry sour grapes.
He spoiled our fun a bit though being so magnanimous in his defeat speech. I just hope he will get to say it again and again and again.
Great moment in From the Boundary on Saturday at lunch time on TMS
ie. David Mitchell saying that watching Ponting have a frothy was such fun that he hoped all the decisions would be dodgy.
Don’t let Ponting’s magnanimity fool you, Jill. the minute you start feeling sorry for him he’ll transform into a fang-toothed monster hell bent on retaining the Ashes and bringing his posse of loyal but clumsy team-mates along with him.
Good luck there chaps, the rub of the green has not gone to those terrible convicts at all this series but at least the headingley test has shown you jolly fellows that however diminished the Australian side is of late you are still clearly quite…worse.