Player battles: Ricky Ponting vs Harbhajan Singh

#2 Number of times Harbhajan dismissed Ponting

Ponting was effectively Harbhajan’s bunny

The contest between Ponting and Harbhajan was always, for some strange reason, dominated by the Indian. Be it the artistry and guile of the off-spinner or just a mental block against someone he couldn’t stand, Ponting never managed to get a grip against Harbhajan.

In the 14 Test matches, the two have come across each other, Harbhajan has dismissed Ponting on 10 occasions, including three instances when the latter was dismissed without even troubling the scoreboards. No other bowler has managed to get the better of the former Australian captain so many times.

Especially, in the Border-Gavaskar series in 2001 (a series in which Harbhajan took 32 wickets), Harbhajan dismissed the right-handed batsman five times. Ponting’s highest score in those five innings stood at a meagre 11 and he managed to amass only 17 runs in the entire series!

It is interesting to note that Harbhajan’s 300^th Test victim was no other than his favourite, Ricky Ponting. In ODIs, though, the offie managed to take Ponting’s wicket only thrice in 33 encounters.