Ricky Ponting made it! Tassie's batting star will play in his first Test." Marsh continued his praise of Ponting, who replaced a dropped Blewett. "I have no doubt Ricky will be trying to get 100 in his first Test game. And I hope he does. You'd back him to. If Ricky carries with him the same attitude that he has seen him succeed at First-class cricket to the next level there is no reason why he will not continue to score." Sri Lanka batted first and scored 251, before Ponting—batting at number five due to Steve Waugh's absence through injury—arrived at the
Ricky Ponting was dismissed all five times by Harbhajan Singh. Ponting had a habit of instinctively rocking onto the front foot and thrusting his wrists at Harbhajan's deliveries and was frequently caught in the bat pad positions because of this. Despite this recent run of poor scores, Ponting was promoted to the key No. 3 position in the Australian batting order at the expense of the dropped Justin Langer, while Damien Martyn took Ponting's former spot at No. 6, for the very next Test series, the 2001 Ashes tour of England. Ponting began the series poorly, scoring 11, 14, 4, 14 and