Damien Martyn welcomes Ricky Ponting on Twitter, reminisces about old times

Former Australia captain Ricky Ponting has finally joined the social media brigade as he made his debut on the short messaging platform Twitter. One of the most revered batsmen of his generation, Ricky Ponting is only second to Sachin Tendulkar in terms of international centuries and overall runs. Currently, he is a well-respected cricket pundit and has been an assistant coach to the Australia team.

Ponting won the World Cup three times in 1999, 2003 and 2007, with two of those wins coming as captain of the Australian team and was part of the squad that reached the finals in 1996 under Mark Taylor. Meanwhile, the team he captained in the 2000s is widely regarded as perhaps the most dominant team in the history of the game, twice winning 16 Test matches in a row. It included match-winning players like Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath, Matthew Hayden, Justin Langer, Damien Martyn, Brett Lee, and others.

“Great to see this champion on social media finally,” says Damien Martyn

Damien Martyn was one of the key members of that Ponting’s invincible team and often was the saving grace when the team found themselves in problems. A classy right-hander from Darwin, Martyn was effortless in his shot-making and loved to tackle both fast bowlers and spinners. He played 67 Tests, making 4406 runs with 13 centuries and 208 ODIs with 5346 runs with 5 centuries to his name.

Ponting was welcomed on social media by Martyn, his partner-in-crime during the 2003 World cup final against India when they blew away the Indian bowlers on the way to 359 runs. Martyn tweeted, “Great to see this champion on social media finally.. Not that far behind the times old pal 😜 @criczilla #cricket #criczilla #Ponting”

Meanwhile, recently, Ponting revealed that he didn’t think much of New Zealand skipper Kane Williamson in his initial days, despite the graceful right-hander scoring a hundred on his Test debut against India in 2010.

Regarded as one of the top four batsmen of this generation which includes Virat Kohli, Steve Smith, and Joe Root, Williamson has taken over the mantle as the greatest batsman of all time from Martin Crowe. “Brendon McCullum said to me then ‘this kid is going to be one of the best players in the world. And I thought ‘really?’. He was pretty loose outside off stump and was going pretty hard at the ball.” Ponting said to cricket.com.au.

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