Ricky Ponting

He plays all the shots given in the book with a full flourish of the bat and knows only to attack; and his breathtaking, dead-eye fielding is a force in the game by itself. He can be called a gambler or even a buccaneer but most importantly, he is a leader. Called ‘Punter’ by his mates and a national hero by his fans, he is none other than Ricky Thomas Ponting.

Born in Launceston, this Tasmanian devil got into domestic cricket playing for the Tasmanian Tigers only at the age of 17 and had the baggy green on his head by the time he was 20. Being brought into the international level at the ripe age of 20 meant that there was something special about him. Described by the great Rodney Marsh as the best teenage batsman he had ever seen, Ricky Ponting made sure he proved his point by scoring a valuable 96 against Sri Lanka in his debut Test match at Perth. He might have missed out on a century back then but now he has made way too many. In One Day Internationals, he has made 22 of them whereas in Tests, he is on a high with 33 tons to his name.

In 2002, his performance with the bat was scinitillating and he received the well deserved title of One Day International Player of the Year. This achievement of his adding to his growing maturity and his dedication to his team saw him getting the captain’s crown which he has been wearing till date. He was captain for hardly a year when he had to lead his team for the World Cup 2003. Ponting, who showed no signs of nervousness or carelessness, performed brilliantly with a 100% success rate and after thrashing the Indian bowling attack in the finals with a valiant 140, he and his team went on to become the world champions for the 3rd time.

Having amassed more than 9,000 runs in both forms of the game, and having an average of 60 in Tests, he looked as an ideal option to be made as captain once Steve Waugh retired from tests. And so after the series against India, Ponting took over as the skipper in 2004. Batting-wise his first year as captain was one to forget, but he began his second with 207 against Pakistan, joining Don Bradman and Greg Chappell as the only Australians to reach four double-centuries.

As 2005 came, so did the long awaited Ashes. Ponting looked eagerly to win his first ever Ashes series but this time he had to wait. As the series got underway, his team showed cracks that widened as each day passed. Ponting tried his best to fight back as he crafted a heroic 156 to help save the Old Trafford Test but the writing was already on the wall. On September 12,2005, Australia lost the urn to the English after 20 years. Ponting became the first Australian captain since Allan Border in 1986-87 to taste defeat in an Ashes series. The result hurt and the pain lingered throughout the next summer but he was still looking for revenge and he finally got his chance. Australia let all their steam out as they thrashed the English with a 5-0 whitewash and gained back the Ashes in the most emphatic way possible. Ponting was Man of the Series rightfully so as Australia became the first team in 86 years to achieve an Ashes cleansweep and his 576 runs at 82.28 confirmed him as the game’s modern master.

The world’s leading strokeplayer, he finished 2005 with 1544 runs and posted twin hundreds three times in five months, joining Sunil Gavaskar as the only other man to achieve the feat, and the double effort in his 100th Test at the SCG was magnificent. He followed up with another 1333 runs in 2006 and owns more centuries than anyone but Sachin, Brian and Sunny. Frighteningly, he is far from finished.