Birthday Special: Ricky Ponting – Successful captain, phenomenal batsman

Australian legend Ricky Thomas Ponting is hailed as one of the most successful captains in the history of international cricket. A skipper always carries a dream of leading his side to the World Cup Trophy, and Ponting achieved it with all the brilliance. Not only once, but he led the Australia side to two World Cup trophies in the years 2003 and 2007. He was also part of the World Cup-winning Kangaroo squad in 1999 as a player.

Captain fantastic

Ponting is considered to be the most successful and celebrated skipper in terms of his winning percentage. He won 220 matches out of a total of 324 played with a stunning winning ratio of 67.91% as a captain. He led the side during what is considered as the ‘golden era’ of Australian cricket history, between 2004 and 2011 in Tests, and 2002-2011 in ODIs.

A classy right-handed batsman, Punter was also a man with safe hands at slips. He was an occasional bowler too and was ICC’s Cricketer of the Decade in 2006. During his time, he was considered parallel to Sachin Tendulkar of India and Brian Lara of the West Indies as one of the best batters of the modern-day era. Back in December 2006, he touched a great milestone, which was the highest rating in the longest format of the game in 50 years.

Records galore

However, the benchmark was surpassed by one of Australia’s current greats, Steve Smith, in 2017. Ponting is the only Test skipper from Kangaroos soil to have led his side to three Ashes defeats on separate occasions but reversed the records in near future. He led his team to their second-ever 5-0 Ashes victory. His bag of records didn’t seem to end till the time he was on the field. He led his side to two straight Champions Trophy wins in 2006 and 2009.

Talking about his glorious career spanning over 17 years, he was part of his national side in 168 Tests and 375 ODIs. Plying his trade in all these matches, he is the leading run-scorer of his country, both in ODI and Test formats. He is one of only four players to have over 13,000 runs in the purest form of the game. The other three stalwarts are Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, and Jacques Kallis. Talking about a player in individual terms, Ponting remains the only cricketer in the history of international cricket to have seen 100 Test victories.

The record stands strong in the ODI format as well, where he has seen 262 wins. He bid farewell to the international circuit in 2012 and is currently the assistant coach of the Australian men’s national cricket team. In July 2018, he was inducted into the ICC Hall of Fame.