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Ricky Ponting Ricky Ponting is an Australian cricketer and current captain of the Australia national cricket team (for both One-day International and Test cricket). Ricky Ponting is also Captain of the Tasmanian Tigers, although international duties make it difficult for him to appear for them. He is a specialist right-hand batsman, slips and close catching fielder, as well as being a very occasional right-arm medium pacer. Ponting reached international standards at a young age for a batsman, making his One-day International debut in early 1995 and making his Test debut at the end of the year, before turning 21. However, his progress was not unhindered. He lost his place in the team several times due to lack of form and discipline issues, before rising to the ODI captaincy in early 2002 and becoming Test captain in early 2004. He is currently the highest ranked Test batsman in the ICC ratings. Ricky Ponting is the world's top-ranked batsman in Test cricket, and is ranked 2nd in One-day Internationals. He is the only cricketer to have twice scored more than 1500 runs in Test matches in a calendar year (2003 and 2005) and on 3 December 2006 overtook Steve Waugh as the leading Australian century maker with 33 Test centuries. He has the fourth highest number of Test centuries of all players in the history of cricket, two behind world leader Sachin Tendulkar. He has scored over 9000 Test runs at an average near 60, but since the February 2002 tour of South Africa (when he was elevated to the ODI team captaincy) he has scored 24 of his Test centuries and averaged above 74, leading to comparisons with Sir Donald Bradman. Ponting is also Australia's leading ODI run-scorer and century maker, having surpassed records previously held by Mark Waugh. His century against the West Indies in Jaipur at the 1996 Cricket World Cup made him the youngest ever World Cup centurion, and his unbeaten 140 against India in the 2003 Cricket World Cup final was the highest by a captain in a World Cup final. In 2007 Cricket World Cup match against South Africa at St Kitts, Ponting became the first Australian to reach 10,000 runs in ODI Cricket and the 7th in world cricket to achieve this distinction. Like many Australian batsmen, Ricky Ponting is particularly strong against pace bowling, with the full array of back foot shots, including the pull, hook, and square cut. Early on, he was regarded as a near-compulsive hooker, but he has latterly moderated this tendency. He tends to move across his off stump, and has therefore been regarded as vulnerable to LBW early in his innings. He is less adept against spin bowling, particularly on very helpful spinning pitches such as those in India where his average is just 12.28. After his first 30 Tests in just under four years his average was 38.62, and after rising into the mid-40s had dipped again to 40.50 after 45 Tests. Since that time his average has consistently risen; his averages in recent calendar years are 70.93 in 2002, 100.20 in 2003, 41.00 in 2004, 67.13 in 2005 and 104.08 in 2006 (as at 5 December 2006). Ponting occasionally bowls medium pace, and has also experimented with off-spin. He is an outstanding fielder square of the wicket or at silly point, with fast reactions and hand-eye coordination and (especially in the one-day game) a reputation for hitting the stumps to run out opposition batsmen. A report prepared by Cricinfo in late 2005 showing that since the 1999 Cricket World Cup, he had effected the second highest number of run-outs in ODI cricket of any fieldsman, with the sixth highest success rate. |
