Bereaved Ponting to miss first one-dayer

Nov 03, 2010 |

Melbourne, Nov. 2: The struggling Australian cricket team will have to do without skipper Ricky Ponting in the first ODI against Sri Lanka here on Wednesday as he decided to skip the match to attend his grandmother’s funeral.

The Aussies lost a Test and ODI series against India last month before being defeated in the one-off Twenty20 match by the Lankans on Sunday.

Ponting will miss the opening one-day international at the MCG to attend his grandmother’s funeral in his home town of Launceston. His grandmother died last weekend.

“I will be flying out tomorrow morning to attend the funeral and then flying straight back to the ground tomorrow afternoon,” Ponting was quoted as saying by the Australian Associated Press.

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