Punter joins the five-figure club

It's said through gritted teeth but "well done Ricky Ponting" on passing 10,000 runs in Test cricket today. The Australia captain joined Sachin Tendulkar, Brian Lara, Steve Waugh, Sunil Gavaskar, Allan Border and Rahul Dravid in the elite club when he drove Ramnaresh Sarwan for a couple in today's Test in Antigua. Ponting was out for 65 soon after, but Australia, at 185 for two as I type, are heading for yet another of those ominous first-innings positions of strength.

No denying that Ponting is a class act as a batsman and with 35 Test hundreds to his name he is second only to Saint Sachin in the list of centurions. I imagine that Ponting, still only 33, will go on to hold that record on his own as well as becoming the leading run-scorer in Tests, depending on how much longer Tendulkar continues. "Punter" must also have the aim of getting his career average up from 58 and a bit into the 60s before he retires and I suspect that we have a few more years of him.

Yet Ponting always seems to be a step or two removed from the top drawer of Australia batsmen. Obviously he falls well below Don Bradman, but am I alone in rating Hayden as more brutal, Border and Steve Waugh as more gritty, Mark Waugh and Dean Jones as more graceful, Adam Gilchrist as someone I'd rather pay to watch? It seems unfair, but has Ponting's undoubted talents been diminished because so often he has been just one of three or four awesome Aussies in any given Test? If he'd played when there was less expectation, as Border did, would he be regarded as Australia's greatest? What do you think?

Comments

[James]

How on earth - by what possible standard - is Ponting not a top drawer batsman, Patrick? You concede weight of runs in the blog (and ability to set up an innings in your follow-up post), but what's so second-rate about the way Ponting scores runs? He's one of the great back-foot players. He can be as electrifying as Gilchrist and as brutal as Hayden once his feet get moving (recall his 140* in the 2003 World Cup final against India, where Ponting does a Jimi Hendrix to the Gilchrist-Hayden Who).

Dislike of Ponting in England is understandable, and that's all it is. I doubt many Australians are very fond of your mate Graham Gooch too, but what of it? Weight of runs is not the only indicator of genuine greatness, but it's certainly one of them.

[Pete]

I've never really really liked Ponting, but I do find myself shocked when he fails, especially since he got the captaincy. I think in hindsight he was the right choice because the captaincy makes him better, and has led to him pipping Hayden and Waugh for the best of the Aussie generation award in my view, I'm probably the only one that thinks that making him captain was worth the extra runs though.
I dunno if you can say he's the second best Aussie ever cos you can't say how he'd do against the Windies of the 80s. I'm not brave enough to guess myself. Suffice to say, particularly if he winds up with a 60+ average, he is an all time great. I'm not sure he will take the centuries and career run scoring records of Sachin though, Tendulkar isn't much older and has a healthy lead in both.

[Oscar the Grouch]

Come now Patrick, that didn't hurt all that much, did it? Ponting lacks finesse in everything, certainly - he's never going to polish into a diamond to grace a tiara, but all in all he's one hell of a lump of coal to keep the home fires burning (ok, perhaps that's not the BEST analogy, but you know what I mean). The times his batting has been what one might call 'scintillating' are rare; the term 'dogged' - as in, say, a Staffy - magnificently unloverly but absolutely, unquestionably dependable to give his best - might be more apposite.

I agree with Rusty; he's the team's Captain rather more than the Captain of the team - he always backs his men and one gets the feeling that when he does fail his disappointment is more for the team than acutely personal.

He has always struck me as somewhat one-dimensional (and I may be doing the man a huge disservice here) but that dimension is totally focussed on winning every match. Since that would, one assumes, be the overriding job criterion for his position, I feel you have to give him credit. I suspect his batting achievements will in the future be subsumed in the minds of most as part of delivering the cricketing record that he has and will, one feels, continue to deliver throughout his remaining time as Captain.

[Patrick Kidd]

You're spot on about the captain's knock, Rusty. And I don't think you get a better example than his 150-odd in the Old Trafford Test in the 2005 Ashes.

Try as they did, England's bowlers could not shift him until there were only four overs left in the match. Even then, with just one wicket to get, Harmison and Flintoff should have been able to seal the win, but Ponting's single-man resistance ensured that England had only 24 balls to get the last wicket rather than 100. It was brilliant infuriating stuff.

Would England have won that series 3-1 if it wasn't for Ponting at Old Trafford? Maybe, although going 2-1 down with two to go may have spurred Australia at Trent Bridge. Anyway, we almost lost Edgbaston so we can't start looking at "what if's" but certainly we would have won that Test comfortably without Ponting.

As for your view about Ponting's statesmanship as captain, Dave, I presume that means you're not part of the growing gang who are regretting Warne was never captain in the aftermath of his success in the IPL. Now there would have been a diplomatic nightmare.

[David Barry]

I agree with your comparisons to other recent Australian batsmen, but I don't think they're relevant in determining 'batting greatness', and I certainly don't think that he seems removed from the top drawer of Australian batsmen. I care about the runs that he scores, not how he scores them. I'd put him ahead of all other Australian batsmen except Bradman (obviously) and Greg Chappell.

[dave]

Fair point Patrick. As a self confessed Aussie cricket tragic, I've always had a bit of love/hate view of RP Ponting.
I think as a technician he is certainly in the same class as some of the batsmen you mentioned. Early on in an innings he can be twitchy and look uncomfortable at the crease. Once he gets a cover drive or one of those trademark pivoting back foot pull shots away, it's all gold.
The one thing that lets Rick down is the fact that he is the first Aussie captain for quite a while who hasn't either been that likeable as a human being or statesmanlike in the captaincy.
It's often said in Australia that being captain of the national cricket team is the second most important job to being Prime Minister and with that comes an onus of responsibility to be gracious, likeable, tactful; in short a politcal animal of charm and class.
Were it not for the hackneyed selectors' viewpoint that only a top order batsman can lead the side, Adam Gilchrist would have certainly captained Australia, a choice which would have been much better for cricket; not just Australia but the world over.

[Rusty]

When Pontng comes to crease, no matter how well or badly the opening pair have done, I always think, "oh good, now the captain is there the innings will settle".

The Waugh's and Hayden's and Gilchrist's may be more entertaining, but Ponting invariably plays a Captain's Knock. And other players bat better for it. He's a team man and the anchor of the team. It's a very cohesive unit, the Australian team, built on mutual support and strong leadership. When Ponting falters at the crease, then the team falters, even if Clarke or Hussey then steady the ship.

That's what is great about Ponting, whether you like him or not. He plays for team.