Ricky Ponting Admits He'd Have Punched Akash Deep For Ben Duckett-Like Send-Off

Ricky Ponting Admits He'd Have Punched Akash Deep For Ben Duckett-Like Send-Off

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Last Updated: August 02, 2025, 08:47 IST

Ricky Ponting admitted that he'd have punched any bowler who tried Akash Deep's aggressive send-off with him during his playing days.

Ricky Ponting (R) reacts to Akash Deep's send off to Ben Duckett. (PC: AP, X)

Ricky Ponting would have ‘probably’ landed a ‘right hook’ on any bowler that tried to send him off like Akash Deep did to Ben Duckett on Friday (August 1), the second day of the fifth Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy Test.

Akash and Duckett carried on their verbal battle from earlier in the series to this game. Duckett pulled out a couple of audacious scoops for boundaries against Aakash and was heard telling that the pacer couldn’t get him out. But just like the third Test at Lord’s, Akash eventually got him out, making him glove another attempted scoop to Dhruv Jurel. As Duckett walked back, Akash put his arm around him and smiled.

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Duckett didn’t seem to say much but was fuming within. The matter was brought to Ponting during the Lunch break.

“I can think of a few batsmen down the years that would take umbrage at this, and I’m looking very much in your direction. That would have been a Ponting right hook, wouldn’t it?" Sky Sports presenter Ian Ward asked Ponting.

“Probably yeah, probably," he replied.

Further, Ponting agreed that such reactions from bowlers aren’t seen every day in Tests, adding that he now liked Duckett even more for reacting to it.

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“Although I mean, when I saw it, I just thought they must have been mates or played against each other somewhere or together. I would like to have something like that. I mean, you don’t see that every day, maybe in a local park game or not in a test match that’s been played as fiercely as this series has been played. I love the way that Ben Duckett plays his cricket. I think I like him more now to not to be able to react to that," Ponting added.

The reaction has not gone down well in England either. The hosts’ assistant coach Marcus Trescothick also called it ‘strange’ from Akash, saying that he knew a lot of ‘good’ people in county cricket who would have responded to it by ‘digging an elbow’ into the Indian for it.

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First Published: August 02, 2025, 08:47 IST

News cricket Ricky Ponting Admits He'd Have Punched Akash Deep For Ben Duckett-Like Send-Off

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