Ricky Ponting snubs Indians as he names 3 best players of the ICC Cricket World Cup 2023

Former Australian captain Ricky Ponting named his 3 best players of the ICC Cricket World Cup 2023.

Australian cricketing legend Ricky Ponting ignored all Indian players as he named the three best cricketers in the ongoing ICC Cricket World Cup 2023 tournament.

India and South Africa have qualified for the semi-finals so far, while Bangladesh and England have been eliminated from the race of the knockouts. Australia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Netherlands and Afghanistan still remain in contention for the semis, with some permutations and combinations in work.

While speaking to ICC, Australia’s 3-time World Cup-winning cricketer and 2-time World Cup-winning captain Ricky Ponting named the three best players in the ongoing ICC Cricket World Cup in India. To the surprise of many, Ponting didn’t pick any Indian players, despite Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli being on the top run-getters list.

On the bowling front, Mohammad Shami, Kuldeep Yadav, and Jasprit Bumrah have been wreaking havoc on opposition batters.

Ricky Ponting names the 3 best players in this ODI World Cup 2023

Instead of naming any Indians, Ricky Ponting went for one Australian and two South African players. His first pick was Adam Zampa. Zampa has taken 19 wickets in this CWC 2023 and is the highest wicket-taker in the tournament thus far.

"It's very hard to go past Adam Zampa, the leading wicket-taker in the tournament. He played the first two games and took no wickets and he has bounced back now sits up top with 18 or 19 wickets.He has been outstanding," said Ponting to ICC.

His next two picks were Quinton de Kock and Marco Jansen from South Africa. De Kock, playing in his final ODI tournament of his career, has scored 545 runs with four centuries to his name. On the other end, Marco Jansen has scored 143 runs with a best of 75* and taken 16 wickets with a best of 3/31.

"Quinton de Kock has four hundreds in this World Cup and it's probably his last World Cup. It's very hard to go past him as he has led a very strong South African batting brigade," Ponting noted.

"The last one, I'm actually going for another South African in Marco Jansen. What he has been able to provide South Africa with the new ball taking wickets upfront, setting up their bowling innings with Powerplay wickets and also contributing with some handy low order runs" Ponting added.