Ricky Ponting may have fallen to the belligerent off-spinner six times in seven Tests but the Australian captain asserted he is not Harbhajan Singh's bunny.
MELBOURNE: Ricky Ponting may have fallen to the belligerent off-spinner six times in seven Tests but the Australian captain asserted he is not Harbhajan Singh's bunny and is itching to settle scores in the next Test in Sydney.
Ponting, who fell to the spinner in the second innings of the Boxing Day Test in Melbourne, called it just an aberration and gave ample hint that he would do everything to set records right.
"We've got a good little battle on our hands," Ponting said.
"I'm actually looking forward to Sydney now, especially after he said some of the stuff he has about getting me out. He must have a pretty short memory," he was quoted as saying by 'The Australian'.
For the record, Harbhajan removed Ponting on all five occasions in the 2001 series, which included three ducks.
Though Ponting was by and large unperturbed in the next two series, in India and Australia, Harbhajan once again threatens to be his bugbear when the offie scalped him in the second innings at the MCG.
Ponting admitted Harbhajan has had the better of their exchanges in Test cricket but stressed he had paid the bowler back in one-dayers.
"There was a World Cup final and all sorts of things in the middle of it (2001 and last week) he seems to have forgotten about pretty quickly," Ponting said.
"He's got a great record against me in Test cricket. It's up to me to get some against him in Sydney," he said.
When asked how he managed to have an edge over the Tasmanian, Harbhajan's reply was "He hasn't batted long enough against me, so I don't know."
"There's no doubt that Ricky Ponting is a very, very good player but, yes, I have some sort of success against him," the Indian spinner had said.
Ponting dismissed suggestions that he was carrying a scar from his previous duels with the spinner and said, "It was just a moment in a match."
"It was one of those things that can happen early in your innings" was how he described his dismissal.
In the match, Ponting edged a Harbhajan doosra to Rahul Dravid and felt only Muttiah Muralitharan could give the ball such a tweak.
"He's pretty unique, in that he's an off-spinner who can spin the ball the other way.
"There are only him and Murali currently playing who can do that. That is unusual. We haven't had one off-spinner who's been able to do that in all the years of Australian cricket," he said.
Ponting also did not hide his dislike for the kind of pitch that was on offer at the MCG and he hoped for a better track in Sydney.
"It was a lot different to what we're used to playing on, that's for sure. It was a tough wicket, no doubt about it," Ponting said.
"Sometimes you get those types of wickets. Hopefully, in Melbourne, this is a one-off. I wouldn't want to be playing next year on a similar surface," he said.
"As groundsmen and groundstaff at the MCG, I hope they look at that and make it a better surface," Ponting added.
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