Ricky Ponting, speaking on The Grade Cricketer Podcast, revealed how, in an attempt to break the ice with Steve Waugh in 1999, he pranked his captain by handing him shaving cream instead of a mouth freshener on a flight.
Ponting, who admitted that there never used to be a “lot of conversation” sitting next to Waugh on a flight, decided to play a prank on his ODI skipper, who replaced Mark Taylor as captain months ahead of the 1999 World Cup, to break the ice ahead of the tournament.
“During the 1999 World Cup, I sat next to Steve Waugh on the flight to the UK,” Ponting recalled, “and I sat down and I got the toiletries bag, which for me then, which they hand out – they’ve got some shaving cream, and a little toothbrush and whatever else. That was a big deal. And he sat down, pulled out his brand new IBM laptop that he’d been given, and had to start working on his tour diary.”
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Ponting, who went on to succeed Waugh as Australia’s captain in both formats, decided to make the over 20-hour-long flight entertaining, by playing a prank on his skipper.
“I said I’ll play a bit of a trick on Tugga just to break the ice a little bit,” Ponting said. “I got the shaving cream out of the bag and actually shook it and said, ‘Mate, this breath freshener is unbelievable, have this’, so he grabbed it, squirted it into his mouth, thinking it was the breath freshener but it was the shaving cream, which was then spat out all over his brand new laptop. So yeah, I broke the ice quite nicely with Tugga.”
Ponting was a shrewd batsman even at the age of nine 👀https://t.co/PlcD7hYPXn
— Wisden (@WisdenCricket) August 10, 2020
Ponting, who went on to win the tournament under Waugh’s captaincy, admitted that Waugh was “a pretty intense” person, but he enjoyed “every moment of playing with him”.
