New kids in Oz team drive Ponting to cricketing nirvana

Durban, Mar.12 (ANI): Ricky Ponting is as happy as he has ever been in his long and successful cricket life, and he credits the new kids on the block for it.

"This is as happy as I've been in my whole career as an Australian player," Fox Sports quoted Ponting as saying after completing a series triumph against the South Africans in Durban.

"It's certainly a unique phase in my career as a captain. To have a number of debutants, and a number of inexperienced guys in the side, it's something I haven't been accustomed to in the majority of my career as a captain. When this transitional phase first started, I always looked at it as being one of the most exciting little phases of my career. It makes it even more exciting when you see guys like Phillip (Hughes) come in and fare well right from the start," Ponting said. "We played some amazing Test cricket over the last couple of weeks and a level of cricket that everybody outside of our dressing room thought we weren't capable of," Ponting said, adding that winning with this team has a different feel."Being the captain of the side when we were so dominant, Test series and Test matches just seemed to roll into one another. We were winning everything that came along or expected to win everything," Ponting said.

Cricket's most successful captain rates this victory up there with the 2006-07 Ashes and the World Cups.

"I'm not putting it above any of those, but if you look at our group of players that we were bringing away on this tour, there'll be a lot of people around the world who didn't think that this was achievable," Ponting said.

"So for us to have achieved what we have done over this week would make this win as special as any that I've been a part of. That no one thought we could beat the South Africans makes the achievement even more special for me," he added. (ANI)