He wasn’t the best or most
successful batsman of his generation....Sachin Tendulkar would win this vote
with a comfortable majority.
He wasn’t the most talented or
visually exhilarating batsman on view...the genius of Brian Lara would top this
chart.
He wasn’t the most destructive
batsman of his era....Adam Gilchrist, Virender Sehwag and Kevin Pietersen would
vie for top honours here.
He wasn’t the best captain
Australia produced in their recent years of glory –Mark Taylor and Steve Waugh
have more deserving claims.
He wasn’t the best fielder we
have witnessed (whatever Ian Chappell might say about his hitting the
stumps)...there never was and will be another Jonty Rhodes.
However, the very fact that he
contents heavily for all these honours, makes Ricky Ponting the undisputable
legend that he is.
Batsman Extraordinaire, Most
successful captain ever of the most successful team in the history of
international cricket, fielder par excellence....and what came as a surprise to
many, in his later years he came across as an erudite and sincere thinker about
the game.
I remember well 2 Aussie
debutants – both sporting goatees, in Perth against Sri Lanka. A frail looking
Ricky Ponting was given out LBW for 96 while Stuart Law got an unbeaten 60 odd.
While the former went on to be the 2nd highest test run scorer (at
least at the time of his retirement), Law never played another test again.
Those early days of Ponting were
marked by a youngster brimming over with talent, yet seemingly bent upon
defeating himself – were we witnessing the cricketing equivalent of Paul Gascoigne,
many would have wondered. Thankfully for cricket fans around the world, he
emerged from those early days of turbulence and steam-lined himself into a
batsman befitting legendary status. In his best years (and these were long and
glorious), there was none more assured at the crease or with a wider array of
strokes. Though he patented that front
foot pull/hook shot of seamers of any pace, there was no dearth of shots of
either foot to fast or slow bowlers.
While his detractors readily
point to his relative failure to master sub-continent wickets, it may be argued
that Ricky really only had that one horror series in 2001, where Harbhajan
repeatedly snaffled him up as soon as he had taken guard. He missed the
majority of Australia’s victorious 2004 series, but that apart he returned
reasonably acceptable returns from his trips to both India and Sri Lanka.
There are plenty of Ponting
knocks which spring to mind, but 2 are especially memorable : the unbeaten 140
in the World Cup final of 2003 at the Wanderers and the 156 in the thrilling
draw at Old Trafford in the 2005 Ashes. At Johannesburg, not only did he take
the entire Indian bowling to the cleaners , but his systematic assault on
Harbhajan Singh, so often his tormentor in the past, must have been extremely
personally satisfying. The Old Trafford innings was special. While the entire
Aussie batting caved in to the swinging wiles of Freddie Flintoff and co, Ricky
stood unshakeable at the other end on the fifth day forging late, game saving
partnerships with Shane Warne and Brett Lee. Though he was dismissed ere the
end, Lee and McGrath saw the game out to a draw – yet another classic finish to
that legendary series.
Today as he retires, Ponting is pretty
much universally acclaimed as the 2nd best Aussie batsman of all
time.....and that is saying a lot....to be acclaimed as the best among the
likes of Trumper, McCabe, Harvey, Chappell, Border, Waugh, Gilchrist is no mean
feat. To an Aussie cricketer, there is no higher superlative than to be placed
2nd best in any cricketing pantheon, almost always certain to be
headed by the incomparable Don. Ricky at least managed 8more runs than Bradman did in his final inning (though its anyone's guess how Robin Peterson matches up with Eric Hollies in the who's who of test spinners).
One wonders how much of a toll
captaincy took on his batting in the later years of his career. The ignonimity
of 3 Ashes defeats is perhaps enough to explain the clearly perceptible drop in
his batting performances in those final years. Unlike Sachin Tendulkar, who
came back from a similar slump, less flamboyant but no less effective, Ricky
never could quite reinvent himself (the 2011 home series against India apart). Yet
his fans and detractors alike, would do better than to remember himself by
these final few years.
Remember him for those mountains
of run, scored far more often with exhilarating flair and panache than with
dogged resistance.
Remember him as the captain of 2,
not only victorious, but unbeaten world
cup teams.
And Finally , remember him , for
that one Century , which is his and his alone – that neither Bradman nor
Tendulkar, neither Warne nor Murali has achieved....a century that is perhaps
the pinnacle of all other statistical centuries in the game....a century that
has no challenger in the horizon today or in the foreseeable future....a
century of test wins.
