Spread across one facade of the Motera, Ricky Ponting, dressed in varying shades of yellow, stares at the passerby with three different World Cup trophies.
Donning the maize-coloured jersey of the 1999 Cup in the first poster, he smiles at the Lord’s balcony with his captain Steve Waugh. Sitting atop a teammate’s shoulders in the second, the first time skipper holds aloft the shining gold trophy — one that matches his 2003 kit — to the cheering Wanderers crowd. And finally, captured in the darkness of the Barbados night, Ponting kisses the emblem stitched on his amber uniform.
The brightest yellow of them all — the current cloth used to make the Aussie uniform — could well make a great frame next to the 2007 hoarding, adding further variety to the Motera’s well-displayed montage. But during practice on Wednesday, the real Ponting — the one in flesh, blood and bones – stood directly below the vacant space adjacent to his two-dimensional portraits, breaking the sunny rhythm with his marine blue practice outfit — strikingly (and ironically) similar to India’s 2011 World Cup jersey.
