--> One of cricket’s finest ODI innings ever played was one every Indian fan wishes was never played in the first place. For on March 23, 2003, a certain Ricky Ponting took it upon himself to single-handedly annihilate a billion Indian dreams. For solace, we keep returning to Sachin’s masterclass from the same tournament where he greeted Shoaib with a six and treated the rest with disdain. To me, the 2003 world cup ended there. I want to blank out that final. All thanks, again, to a certain Ricky Ponting. To an Indian supporter, praising Ricky Ponting is akin to siding with Pakistan in an Indo- Pak encounter. But Ricky Ponting could have all too easily been a fallen hero, someone who burned out far ahead of his time. Cricket is littered with such tales of supreme talents that placed mammon and the bottle before the game, when all they while it should have been the other way round. The fearsome Andrew Symonds comes to mind, his career having derailed over the ...