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Cricket Players'Rahul Dravid was in the nets batting with footy boots': Ricky Ponting shares funny story about former India captain
Former Australia captain Ricky Ponting has narrated a funny story regarding Rahul Dravid, revealing how the former India captain once batted in the nets wearing football shoes and found himself in trouble.
Former Australia captain Ricky Ponting has narrated a funny story regarding Rahul Dravid, revealing how the former India captain once batted in the nets wearing football shoes but had trouble doing so. The incident took place ahead of the 2005 ICC Super Series which pitted a series of matches between Australia and World XI.
In a chat with Cricket Australia, Ponting revealed that due to a wet outfield, he had instructed his players to wear football boots since the cricket boots since it was tough fielding wearing cricket boots on the damp outfield. However, the former Australia captain was caught off-guard when he spotted Dravid – representing World XI – batting with football shoes in the nets and having a tough time batting wearing them.
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"One funny story coming out of that Super Series… the outfield was quite wet and damp and I had basically instructed all the guys that weren't bowling – the fielders and outfielders – that we have to go and get football boots to field, because tried to change directions but out cricket spikes were ripped from the top and you’ll slip and fall over. I sort of felt that if we got footy boots, then it’ll probably be a real advantage for us in the field. So we tried in for the first couple of days, leading up to the first game," Ponting said.
"A lot of guys that were a part of the team had caught on to the fact that we were getting around in our footy boots. I’ll never forget, on the day of the first game, we went down to the nets and Rahul Dravid was in the nets batting with footy (football) boots. And you can imagine what they are like on the turf. He was trying to put his foot down on the hard surface and his foot was just slipping out."
Australia were so dominant at the time that they steamrolled the World XI in all three ODIs and the one-off Test match.
