Ponting the batsman par excellence
Ricky Ponting, arguably, is the best and dominating batsman in contemporary cricket today. One can write him off as a captain who lacks strategies. However, nothing of that sort can be written about his batting.
He has been amazingly consistent and scores centuries almost at will. The best part of his batting is that he rarely scratches around for long. He is known to be a tentative starter in slow pitches. A look at his performance against Ishant Sharma and Harbhajan Singh may give a picture that these bowlers have some sort of psychological hold over him. Ishant Sharma has troubled Ponting with his bounce and outswingers throughout the Indian tour down under and then again during the Australian visit to India this year.
This small blemish apart, Ponting has been at his authoritative best against almost all bowlers around the world. I for one, think that he has become much more consistent than ever before. I went to check his statistical record at www.cricinfo.com to see how he actually performed in the past five years and if there was any significant change in his consistency. The result is below:
Till 31 December 2003, Ponting played 74 Test matches (out of a career total of 127 including the currently under progress 2nd Test V. South Africa) and scored 5,749 runs with 20 centuries at an average of 56.36 runs an innings. An average of one score above 100 every four tests.
Post 2003, he has played 53 test matches and has scored 17 centuries, accumulating almost another 5,000 runs (4,948 runs to be precise). How often did he score his centuries in this phase? Once every three tests. The icing on the cake is that he was Captain of the Australian team in 52 of these 53 test matches.
I checked his centuries record excluding what can be considered as weak teams, by only taking his performance against, England, South Africa, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. He has played 88 test matches against these teams in all, scored 26 centuries at an average of 59.38 which is better than his career average of 58.98. This shows that he actually scored “comparatively” less against the weaker teams.
He is an amazing player and surely a contemporary great. It is unfortunate that he missed achieving the record of scoring a century in each innings in this test match . It would have been the fourth time he would have achieved that feat in his career had he scored that one extra run in the second innings.
It is an undeniable fact that many of Australian victories in the past decade of their cricketing dominance have been aided by Pontings prolific run getting.
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I think Dravid and Kallis were a better than Ponting.
Ponting always had a luxury of asettle and strong opening pair since he has been batting at number three.
His record against India in India isnt so terrifying.
Tarun,
I think in terms of authority when at the batting crease, and sheer pace at which he was scoring runs, added to the burden of captaincy, Ricky Ponting must rank head and shoulders above Rahul Dravid and Jacques Kallis.
One thing which can be held against is that he never had to play the Aussie bowling which was top class with Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne. But, this should be looked against the background he having to bat in sportive wickets and bowler friendly weather conditions in Australia, England, South Africa and New Zealand. That is not the case for atleast 50% of the matches played by Rahul Dravid.
Firstly, nice posting and good observations over Ponting’s performances. Three batting greats cannot be compared since one plays an anchor role all the time, another plays dashing innings and Kallis is somewhere in between. This not the topic of discussion I beleive. I totally disagree with you that Dravid has not performed that well compared to Ponting’s subcontinent record. Both Kallis and Dravid have played some greatest innings of all time in foreign soils unlike Ponting or Tendulkar.
You have pointed out the recently concluded test match innings by Ponting. Even I got the opportunity after a long time to watch a match played at Australian ground with the exciting commentary team. As you said, Ponting is one of those gifted players who is dashing and at the same time neat and who does not take much time to settle down at the crease. He was not in his elements, I believe and could see the never seen body language (down) throughout the innings.
Especially in the second innings, having Brett Lee or Johnson at the other end, it was not the same Ponting that I have seen before. I am sure and agree that defeats would have had its role in his mind. But we don’t give same judgement to Lara or Tendulkar or Dravid while captaining.
In a line-up that Australia had 2 years back both in batting and bowling, I am sure any batsmen would have batted that well (please note that Clarke is batting same way Ponting has been doing). Also adding more cushion is the Australian cricket board and fans. My humble view is that Ponting is one of the finest batsmen. But he has never been on par with all time greats. Down the line we will see Clarke crossing 30 centuries in test cricket.
We speak 10 years of cricket as big thing while we tend to forget a man who is playing at 20th year. Even if we reduce 5 years as out of form phase, still we are left with amazing 15 years of power cricket.
He is certainly dominating at the crease but cannot agree that he is the best.
the great attribute of ponting, to me, is his utter dominance of the bowlers when he is in song ! rahul dravid too would have scored more than 10,000 runs, but we cant remember dravid dominating the bowling, at any point ! ponting plays with the bowlers minds more ! that perhaps was the reason for his downfall against ishant & bhaji, though he desperately wanted to do it, he was unable to play them consistently well for a prolonged period !
Sriram,
Welcome to my blog.
I totally agree that Ponting 99% of the times dominates the bowlers. He is a complete cricketer, just like Sachin Tendulkar, which can be seen in his authoritative batting, range of strokes, running between the wickets, concentration, ability to make high scores and then fielding.
The only difference between him and Sachin is that, Sachin didn’t click as a Captain while Ponting did.
But then, we have not seen Sachin leading the team with Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath, Mathew Hayden, Adam Gilchrist and Justin Langer in his side!
So I discount Ponting as a Captain but rate him very high as a batsman.
Hi Triplicani,
“The only difference between him and Sachin is that, Sachin didn’t click as a Captain while Ponting did.”
I have no other go that I can take this as your view and leave as it is.
Again in my view, Tendulkar should not be compared with Ponting.
Tendulkar after playing 20 long years, around 17th year he found his prime time missing. One should have played this long to be compared with Sachin.
Even when in out of prime, Sachin scored centuries. Let us wait and watch whether Ponting could do the following:
1. Staying that long fit and playing for Australia
2. Scoring runs when not in prime form
Then we will start comparing him with Ponting. To me again, stressing, he cannot come into the list of following players:
Richards
Lara
Tendulkar
Mark Waugh
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