Ricky Ponting

Ricky Thomas Ponting is a professional cricketer, who is currently the captain of the Australian cricket team. He is a right handed batsman and occasionally right arm medium bowler. He is known to be one of the successful captains of Australia. Besides that he is also considered as one of the most flourishing run maker after Don Bradman in Australia.

In the 1992-93 season, Ponting made his domestic cricket debut for Sheffield Shield and scored 782 runs at an average of 46 in the season. In 1994-95, he was selected to play for the Australian XI for a four day match against England and for the Australia A team in the one day tournament.

Ponting made his one day international debut for Australia on 15th February 1995 against South Africa. His test match debut for Australia took place on 8th December 1995 against Sri Lanka. In this match he scored 96 runs.

During the 1996 Cricket World Cup, he batted in the No. 3 position and was the youngest batsman to score a World Cup century, which he hit against the West Indies in a group match. He scored his first Test century in 1998-99 at Leeds. However, he was dropped out of the team and Darren Lehmann took his place.

In 2003, Ponting hit double centuries in consecutive tests against India at Adelaide and Melbourne. Earlier in this year, he had hit another double century at the Port of Spain. In this way, he was the second player after Don Bradman to hit three double centuries in a calendar year.

In the 2003 World Cup, Ponting led Australia to a dominant and undefeated performance. In the final, Ponting scored 140 runs in 121 balls. On 12th March 2006, at Johannesburg, Ponting scored 164 in only 105 balls as Australia piled up 434 runs. However, this total was overcome by South Africa who scored 438. For this match, Ponting and Herschelle Gibbs were jointly awarded the Man of the Match award.

In the 2007 World Cup, while playing against South Africa, Ponting crossed 10,000 runs in one day internationals and became the first Australian and seventh in the world to achieve this feat. In 2008, Ponting was a part of the Indian Premier League and represented Kolkata Knight Riders.

Major individual achievements

Ponting has won two Cricket World Cups and shares this record with Clive Lloyd.

He has 16 consecutive test victories to his credit and shares this record with Steve Waugh.

He has 122 victories as a ODI captain and 22