Former Australia captain Ricky Ponting recently shared a funny anecdote involving India legend Rahul Dravid from the 2005 ICC Super Series between Australia and World XI. Ponting recalled how Dravid used football boots to bat in the nets and kept slipping. Ponting narrated the incident in a video shared by Cricket Australia on their official Twitter handle.
The 2005 Super Series consisting of three ODIs and one Test was played between Australia and World XI in Australia. The World XI side had some of the best players from around the globe with Dravid and Virender Sehwag – the only two Indians in the side. The World XI team also had the likes of Brian Lara, Muttiah Muralitharan, and Shaun Pollock among others.
Ponting revealed he had instructed the Australian players to use football boots to train on the field due to overcast conditions as the boots would provide better grip than the normal cricket shoes. Some of the World XI players including Dravid took inspiration from the idea and followed the same route.
However, Dravid turned up in the nets with his football boots on to bat and didn’t have a pleasant experience. Ponting recalled how he later told Dravid that the Australian players used the boots only for fielding.
“One funny story coming out of that Super Series – the outfield was quite wet and damp. And I had actually instructed all of our guys who weren’t bowling – the fielders – to go out and get football boots for fielding. Because, when we tried to change direction, our cricket spikes would literally just rip through the top and we would fall over and slip over,” Ponting said in the video.
“We trained in it for a couple of days leading up to the first game. A lot of the guys that were part of that other team had caught on to the fact that we were wearing those footy boots. I’ll never forget that ahead of the first game, we went down to the nets and Rahul Dravid was there, batting in footy boots. You can imagine what footy boots are like on a turf wicket. He was trying to put his foot down on that hard shiny surface and his foot was slipping (forward). He’d seen us and thought we might be batting in it as well. But, we just used those for fielding,” he added.
Australia went on to win the only Test in the series by 210 runs after impressive performances from Matthew Hayden and Adam Gilchrist. Hayden slammed a 111-run knock in the first innings while Gilchrist scored 94 to help Australia post 345 runs on the board. In reply, World XI was bundled out for 190 before another fifty from Hayden powered Australia to 199 in their second innings.
Stuart MacGill’s five-wicket haul helped Australia bundle out World XI for 144 in their second innings and wrap up a comfortable victory for the hosts. Dravid didn’t have a great series and could only manage 23 runs across the two innings.
