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Alright now Ricky Ponting — this is getting spooky.
The former Australian cricket captain ’s freakish ability to predict what’s going to happen before it’s actually happened has once again reared its head as Australia attempted to fight back against the West Indies.
The World Test champions were in dire trouble at 5/54 when Alex Carey joined Usman Khawaja at the crease.
Still 257 behind on the Windies’ first innings of 311, Carey launched a stunning rearguard action reminiscent of the great Adam Gilchrist.
Carey raced to 65 off just 48 balls, smashing nine fours and a six.
But then Ponting intervened.
In commentary for Channel 7, the Aussie legend said: “It looks like (Carey’s) eyes are spinning a bit to me. He’s in overdrive at the moment, wants to hit every ball.
“(The West Indies should) just go a bit more defensive, make him play a big shot from a good length ball.”
As soon as the words left his lips, Carey whipped a pull shot to the square leg boundary where Tagernarine Chanderpaul took a regulation catch.
Watch in the video player above.
The dismissal saw Australia drop to 6/150 and 7/161 when Mitchell Starc was dismissed for just 2.
But Khawaja’s patient 75 and the third half century of Pat Cummins’ career brought Australia almost back to parity.
Incredibly, it’s not the first time in this match Ponting has done similar.
On day one, Ponting was speaking about an Alzarri Joseph deflection through short leg with three balls left in the day that should have been a run but saw the bowler sent back by debutant Kevin Sinclair.
Sinclair, who would go on to hit a 50 before being the last wicket to fall, stayed at the nonstriker’s end and Ponting said: “I don’t like saying it, for West Indies’ sake, but normally this game has a way of making things like that come unstuck.”
The following ball, Joseph edged to slip in what was the last ball of the day.
“Just like that,” commentator James Brayshaw said. “Just like that.”
Ponting added: “Well, I didn’t want to say it, but I did — he (Joseph) should have been up the other end; there was a single there.
“That’s actually the second time today that the West Indies, on the back of some slack running between the wickets, have lost a wicket.”
Ponting has made plenty of freaky predictions in the past, including earlier in the month when he nailed a BBL wicket from Nathan Coulter-Nile, that led to the wicket of Hobart Hurricanes start Nikhil Chaudhary the following ball.
Ponting has been bang on predicting countless moments, even David Warner’s Boxing Day double century in 2022.
Ponting called a second-ball duck for India’s Prithvi Shaw in the first Test of the Border-Gavaskar Series in Australia in 2020-21.
He even called for Travis Head in the World Cup semi-final against South Africa, bowling Proteas run-machine Heinrich Klassen to break an imposing partnership in what was an ultimately tight three wicket win.
And there are countless more times Ponting has been right on the money.
Originally published as Freakish predictions once again prove Ricky Ponting isn’t human
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