No Dickheads Policy

When Ricky Ponting returned from the disastrous tour of India in October, a small scrum of media cornered him outside the international airport, asked a brace of tough questions, recorded a brace of defiant answers, then scurried off to file for deadline.

Hanging back behind it all was Ponting’s wife Rianna and his two year old daughter Emmy, who must have been busting to hug her Dad. When the last reporter disappeared, Ponting picked up Emmy in one hand, and manfully pushed his overburdened trolley through the car park with the other. He then packed his large, shiny SUV and drove off to his spacious, waterfront home in the Sutherland Shire.

In those brief, private moments, the Pontings looked like any other happily reunited family at the airport. Ricky was a dad and husband, not a cricketer and captain. It kind of made you feel all warm and gooey inside. But there’s nothing warm and gooey about the way this summer of cricket is panning out. And that same media scrum, quite rightly, is interrogating Ponting with increasing ferocity.

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