Ricky Ponting Farewell in Pictures

By Meg Anderson

PERTH, Australia (TheSportsNEXT) December 3, 2012: A tearful but upright Ricky Ponting, the legendary Australian batsman, left the WACA Ground in Perth on Monday for one final time as he put an end to a celebrated test career spanning over 17 years.

The cricket fans all across the globe will miss the pull shots, hook shots, drives on the up, flicks to the leg side, short-arm jabs, and fierce cuts for the rest of their lives as the Australia’s most successful skipper has called it quits on Test career.

Ricky Ponting was always a treat to watch for any cricket fan and he made huge amount of runs for Australia as he is only second to Sachin Tendulkar in the list of all-time top scoring batsman in Test cricket.

A career that spanned over 168 Test matches saw Australia ruled the cricketing world for a long time and with such class and authority that teams felt cold in the spine while touring Australia.

Ponting, also known as Punter, was not only a great batsman but was also a superb captain who knew his field positions, abilities to use the right bowler at the right time and the right batsman in the crunch time, a quality not very common with most of the skippers around.

Ricky Ponting had that aggression in his style that made him launch counterattacks when the chips were down for Australia and he was able to shine among the likes of Mathew Hayden, Justin Langer, Steve Waugh, Stuart Law, Mark Waugh, Mark Taylor, Mike Hussey, Damien Martin, Adam Gilchrist, and so many others and seldom lost his place in the playing eleven.

It was a consistent cricket career which had Ricky Ponting bashing all the top bowlers in the world on all parts of the grounds around the world and it took him 17 years to lose his touch.

We all would have loved to see Ricky Ponting retire on a winning note but it wasn’t to be as he couldn’t deliver it with the bat towards the very end of his career.

Only two fours all he could manage in his final innings which lasted for 23 deliveries but that culminated a Test career which has 41 centuries, only third to Sachin Tendulkar with 51 and Jacques Kallis with 44.

Ricky Ponting, after retiring showed great respect for other top cricketers in his era. Especially he paid huge tributes to Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar when he said, "I felt Sachin was probably the best player I played against and that's coming from more of a captain's point of view knowing he had so much success against us in our conditions and their conditions”.

Punter didn’t forget to mention Brian Charles Lara on final day of his Test career. He said, "I probably lost more sleep on the eve of games to (Brian) Lara because I knew that he could single-handedly win games for his team. It's hard to separate the class of players those two guys, you have got to put Kallis in that bracket as well when you put his wickets on top of what he's done with the bat as well."

Fans may have some regrets not to find Ricky Ponting ending his career with a fighting century or a victory but the former Aussie skipper said he has no regrets. “(I have) no regrets. I'll stand by every decision I've made on or off the field. Honestly, looking back, I don't think I'd change too much. I'll miss the mateship. I'll miss the dressing room. That's the stuff you can't replace."

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