Former Australian captain Ricky Ponting is a great student of the game, one of the greatest limited overs batsman ever. Mahendra Singh Dhoni, India’s most successful captain who is at the twilight of his career has found an admirer in the former Aussie captain. Mahendra Singh Dhoni is currently participating in the Indian Premier League 2017, but not as a captain for Rising Pune Supergiant. He has not been in the best of form but still Ponting feels MSD should lead his best ever XI.
This is Ricky Pontings best IPL XI. Even Indians like Amit Mishra, Ashish Nehra, Harbhajan Singh feature in that list.
In a recently concluded interview he said, “I have gone for a bit of a shock here and have put Amit Mishra in the side. He has got an outstanding IPL record, he has got great variations and he is a wicket-taker because he is not scared to throw the ball up. He turns the ball enough both ways and he has been a great performer for a long, long time.”
“AB de Villiers is another one who would walk into most IPL teams through the history of the game. But with the record that my openers, Gayle and Warner, have it was a bit hard to fit AB de Villiers in the middle order,” he said to Cricket Australia.
“But he is an out-and-out match-winner; he can bat at No. 3 to No. 6, he wins games by himself and he scores 360 degrees around the ground. He is pretty much the blueprint of the modern T20 player. He is exceptional and he is unlucky to miss out,” he added.
