Jhakas | Sanjay Jha
Watching the two tallest twin building in the world, the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur from my 19th floor room in Mandarin Oriental at the midnight hour was quite a breathtaking experience. For one, there were no concrete slabs in between, no exasperating skyscraper attempting a clumsy intrusion, just the nightly air of KL in sleep mode and the Malaysian tourist marvel gleaming majestically in front. . The pyramid-structured top was shimmering in magnificent refulgence , like a diamond-studded rocket nosing into the cloudless, starlit sky. Yet quite remarkably, Petronas is understated, possessing no pretentious attempts to shock and awe. It remains a modest edifice despite it’s interminable stretch even at it’s peaking zenith, giving the awesome office structure wrapped in a glass house an elegant touch. Of sheer class. Like Ricky Ponting.
I first met the pugnacious Aussie at Taj Land’s End (then called The Regent) in Y 2000, when the Hanse Cronje match-fixing scam was ballooning sky-high. Ponting had come to India on an exclusive assignment for CricketNext; to share his batting tips , playing skills and mental conditioning regimen with young cricket aspirants . Ponting looks like a diminutive member of a high school thug gang, sporting a bully’s expression with cool aplomb. But deep down inside, behind his steely exterior, pub brawls, and an adversarial attitude lies a warm soul. His heart , as they say, is in the right place. Continue reading below
I asked him as to why he chose to come to India to train young kids, and he said;” I love kids. And in India, it is these young blokes who drive the game’s popularity”.
I remember penning then in one of my first few pieces as editorial emissary of CricketNext that Ricky Ponting would one day be the biggest threat to Sachin Tendulkar’s pervasive suzerainty ( at that time our Little Master was an unstoppable steam engine crushing one and all). It has happened. Steve Waugh, Ponting’s predecessor , who had earlier crowned Tendulkar as the new Bradman, has admitted that Ponting had rightfully earned that sobriquet away from the Mumbai man. Like Bradman, Ponting is a ferocious winner. From the first ball he faces, he is searching ways to dominate. To out-think opponents. To take the battle into their home zone. To get runs.
Sachin, Brian Lara and Ponting have clearly been the dominating batting behemoths in the last decade in world cricket , accumulating runs, amassing records, assimilating new successes in their giant strides in both forms of the game.The Extraordinary League of Gentlemen. But what sets Ponting apart into another league altogether is his leadership skills and match-winning performances. At 32, he has played in four successive World Cup finals, been a critical part of three champion teams, and successfully led the Australians in two overwhelming victories. Lara and Tendulkar were mediocre captains at best, and the coveted world Cup eluded them with mischievous delight. End of comparisons; they are odious, you see?
What makes Ponting an incredible menacing force in cricket is his brilliant temperament. The man has gargantuan self-confidence and is a gutsy fighter, who respects every opponent, whether a brittle minnow awaiting a generous execution or bitter traditional enemies anticipating a deadly bloodbath. His ruthless determination to win has had a cascading contagious effect on his team. While India’s brains ( ?) trust foolishly debated the “ old age” factor, Australia romped home with three ageing veterans ( 36 plus) liquidating their hapless opponents throughout the World Cup; Mat Hayden pulverizing the bowlers, and Adam Gilchrist squashing Sri Lanka into a soft pulp. And Glen McGrath walks away with the Player of the Tournament, no less. Amazing stuff! . Did I hear someone say, “ Old Spice”?
Ponting also finally cracked that defiant Final Frontier on Indian shores which Waugh desperately craved for , although he could only make it for the treacherous Bombay pitch in the last match of that controversial series. There were several cynics, the legendary Vivian Richards included who scoffed at Australian prospects in the West Indies, because of the two unprecedented defeats against New Zealand and England . But Ponting quietly rewrote the script with an iron hand, no fountain pens were needed. . Both New Zealand and England were not just spanked thoroughly for their earlier bad behaviour , they were trounced into cowardly submission for displaying some cheeky audacity. And all this when the skipper was recuperating from a severe back pain, without an injured Brett Lee, and a team supposedly crippled by low-morale. Unbelievable!
Ricky and I were traveling together in Pune where he was to address a charged-up crowd in a business school in an interactive Q & A session in Y 2003, post-that famous belligerent 140 that demolished the Men in Blue. Ponting was also at that time the Brand Ambassador of CricketNext.
I asked him the recipe of Australia’s and his humongous success story. Said Ponting. “ I always play a match telling myself that we are number two, and that we shall be the real champions only if we win this one. It keeps us motivated. We are never satisfied. And we never want to lose, even if we know that can occasionally happen”. It’s so simple. Aspirational. Aggressive. Unassuming. Focused. A goal to achieve. Living in the moment. The success mantra.
Ricky Ponting is an icon. A legend. Probably the greatest player ( and we haven’t even talked of his fielding pyrotechnics yet, and for that my apologies) of the modern era. Batsman, captain, fielder. And a winner.
He is like Petronas Towers. Only slightly taller.
