Ricky Ponting

Ricky Ponting, the most uncompromising player of his generation, grew into Australia's most successful run-maker and sits below only Bradman among the greatest batters the country has produced.

Acclaimed by Rod Marsh as the best teenage batter he had ever seen, Ponting began with Tasmania at 17 and Australia at 20, and was given out unluckily for 96 on his Test debut in 1995. There were some teething problems in the early years, including a public admission of an alcohol problem, but the longer he went on, the more he matured, piling up the runs and records. He finished with 27,483 runs and 71 hundreds in international cricket, the second-most prolific Test scorer when he retired, behind Sachin Tendulkar.

Ponting played all the shots with a full flourish of the bat - the cover drive and the pull were particularly productive for him - and knew only to attack. His breathtaking, dead-eye fielding was a force in the game by itself.

The batting highlights included an average of 54 from 29 Tests against India, boosted by two thunderous double-centuries in consecutive matches in 2003, which fetched him a series aggregate of 706 runs, and another double in his last series against them in 2012. Against the old enemy, England, he started with a hundred at Headingley in 1997 in his first Test against them that not only lifted Australia from 50 for 4 but also helped take them to a massive win of the sort they would trademark in the decade or so to come. In the 2002-03 Ashes mauling, Ponting was to the fore with hundreds in the first two Tests; his 156 to wrest a draw at Old Trafford in 2005 was an epic in a series filled to the brim with them; and he gorged himself In the 5-0 whitewash of 2006-07 with 196 and 142 in Brisbane and Adelaide, and two fifties besides. Those performances came at the tail end of a run that started 11 months earlier, during which he made eight hundreds in nine Tests. Between 2002 and 2008, he only went two years without scoring at least 1000 runs apiece in Tests. In ODIs he pulled the feat off in six years, including 2003, when in the World Cup final he pummelled 140 unbeaten runs against India, taking the title off them before their chase had even started.

As captain, Ponting was a little less dominantly successful, but his record was magnificent all the same: 48 wins in 77 Tests gave him a win percentage second only to Steve Waugh in the game's history, despite defeats in three Ashes series and against South Africa and India. He also led Australia to 26 consecutive undefeated (completed) 50-over World Cup games, stepping down from the captaincy when that run ended, in the 2011 World Cup. For the first three years of his reign he was in charge of a superstar unit and did not have to do a whole lot tactically, but once the core of that team retired he had to change from a manager to moulder.

After his retirement, Ponting turned to coaching, with three years at the helm of Mumbai Indians in the IPL, including during their title win in 2015. In 2018, he took over as coach of the Delhi franchise, where he formed a vital partnership with the captain, Shreyas Iyer - a relationship that continued when the two moved to Punjab Kings.