Ricky Ponting names his top three players of ICC World Cup 2023

06 November, 2023

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.

Ricky Ponting went for one Australian and two South African players. His first pick was Adam Zampa. The Australian spinner 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. Adam Zampa 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,” Ricky 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” the former Australian captain added.