The archetypal modern cricketer. Review on Ricky Ponting

Ricky Thomas Ponting (Born December 19, 1974, in Launceston, Tasmania) is the present captain of the Australian One-Day and Test cricket teams. He is one of the world's leading batsmen in both forms of the game, as of 2005 having made 8253 runs in 100 Tests at the outstanding batting average of 57.71, and 8659 runs at 42 (and with the good strike rate of 78) in 242 one-day international matches.

Acclaimed by academy coach Rod Marsh as the best teenage batsman he had ever seen, Ricky Ponting began with Tasmania at 17 and Australia at 20, and was given out unluckily for 96 on his Test debut.

Early off-field difficulties, involving him on two occasions getting excessively drunk while on tour, and once becoming involved in a bar fight, saw him temporarily dropped from the team in 1999, but aside from an ankle injury in 2000 he has been a permanent fixture in the team, mostly batting in the number 3 position where the best batsman in the team is traditionally played. He was and remains the archetypal modern cricketer: he plays all the shots with a full flourish of the bat and knows only to attack, and his breathtaking, dead-eye fielding is a force in the game by itself. A gambler and a buccaneer, he is a natural at one-day cricket. He has had his setbacks, against probing seam attacks and high-class finger-spin, which, when out of form, he plays with hard hands.

With a more mature attitude and the appointment of the thirtysomething Steve Waugh as captain in 1999, speculation began soon after that Ponting was destined for the Australian captaincy, particularly after his appointment to the vice-captaincy in 2000. With the dropping of Waugh from the one-day team in 2002, Ponting became captain, leading his team to a dominant performance in the 2003 cricket World Cup, leading the complete demolition of the undisputed second-best team in the tournament, India, in the final with a brilliant 140-run innings. With Waugh's retirement, he assumed the Test captaincy and continued Australia's success in that form of the game, notably whitewashing Sri Lanka 3-0 in Sri Lanka, a rare achievement on the ''subcontinent''.

Like many Australian batsmen, he is particularly strong against pace bowling, with the full array of back foot shots, including the pull, hook, and square cut. Early on, he was regarded as a near-compulsive hooker and vulnerable to being caught at fine leg; he has latterly moderated this tendancy. He is less effective against spin bowling on flat pitches; his Test record in India, for instance, is terrible.

In 2004, Ponting was named Leading Cricketer in the World by the Wisden Cricketers' Almanack.

Batting-wise his first year was one to forget, but he began his second with 207 against Pakistan, joining Don Bradman and Greg Chappell as the only Australians to reach four double-centuries. By the time an eagerly awaited Ashes series got underway, however, the cracks in a previously invincible Australian side were beginning to appear. A humiliating one-day defeat against Bangladesh caused the first ripple of dissent against his leadership style, and this grew as the summer progressed, with many pundits feeling his approach was wooden when compared to the wily Shane Warne. An heroic 156 helped saved the Old Trafford Test, but on September 12, 2005, Ponting became the first Australian captain since Allan Border in 1986-87 to taste defeat in an Ashes series.

With the now-large financial rewards of international cricket, Ponting is a full-time professional cricketer. His one well-known off-field interest is betting on horse and greyhound races, as indicated by his nickname, ''Punter''.

He married his long-time girlfriend, law student Rianna, in June 2002.