Ponting- Villain of my childhood 🏏 (click to read more)

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Dear Ricky Ponting,

My childhood was going well. Everything and everyone was awesome- School, friends, playing ground, maa, papa. But then you came into my life in 2003.

You made me cry. No, maa did not scold me for watching cricket matches. It was you. You cheated during the 2003 World Cup final match.

They say, cricket is a gentleman's game. But you did not behave like one. You did break the rules. You broke two rules:

1. You had a spring in your bat, just like Jayasuriya had rubber in his bat

2. You bribed ICC officials and umpires for allowing you to play with that bat (we believed- bribing happens in India only, not in any white people country)

Do you remember that you scored 140 runs with those 8 massive monstrous sixes and your team scored 359?

To start a match on good note, Sachin got out in the 1st over by scoring 4 runs. He did not score a century. So, the match was definitely ours.

Then Sehwag, Ganguly and Dravid took charges. I remember after the 17th over, it started to rain. Dravid and Sehwag were on the field. I took my 1st pee break of the 2nd inning. Me and my cousin brother Avi were praying to god to stop the rain. We were confident of winning. Afterall, Sachin did not score a century. God eventually listened to us and there was no loss of over.

Fear of losing started to grapple me when Sehwag got out on 81. If he would have dived, we would have won the match. I still have no answer why Sehwag did not dive? Maybe he was too tired.

But Avi asked me not to lose hope. We Indians believe that the match is not over till the last ball is played.

Yes, I know. We did not even play 50 overs. Because, you bribed Bucknor and Shepherd too.

On the next day of the match, I was told the following things- please confirm if they were true:

1. Someone from Pakistan helped you to put springs in your bat

2. Rama in the school told me that ICC gave you duplicate trophy for cheating and not the original one

3. Shane Warne was not allowing you to use springs. So, you dropped him from the tournament

4. You later offered your bat (with springs) to Sachin

5. To become No. 1 team in the world, India was required to score more than 359 runs in a match

You know, we Indians were always at the receiving end of conspiracies. Please see if you could confirm them too. To list few:

1. Bucknor’s wife was Indian and she divorced him

2. Cricket stadium at Sharjah had grass from Pakistan, so we could not win match against them at Sharjah

3. On Fridays, Pakistani players used to fast and pray to their god. So, we never won a match against them on Fridays

You made a little boy cry. After 2003, cricket was never the same to me. I even asked at least 10 sport equipment retailers for a bat with springs, none of them had any answer. You ruined my childhood.

​​Anyway, what is done is done. The 2003 world cup gave us promising players like Yuvraj, Nehra and Zaheer. We later found truce in that. Yes, we Indians always look at the positive side.

Yours truly,

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*David Shepherd (big fat guy, now dead- used to favour Indians) and Steve Bucknor (always against Indians) were on field umpires for 2003 World Cup final match

*This is Rant cum Open Letter to Ricky Ponting (Australian cricket player who's retired now) is written by a kid whose dream of India winning cricket World Cup was shattered in 2003