Ricky Pointing

Legend retires today, and from this moment on there will only be nice things said about him.

Good Batsman ship overshadowed his
fielding brilliance 

Ricky pointing came out that very typical Australian mould of batsman. He was a quintessential Aussie batsman in style and approach. The good fielder as well but his batting brillance overshadowed it a little.

Superb near 2 decade international career from Ponting, who will go down as one of the all time greats. An excellent cricketer who made many achievements a reality - 3 consecutive ODI World Cup wins (2 as captain), back-to-back centuries in his 100th Test, 5-0 Ashes victory, first (and currently only) player to be involved in at least 100 Test match wins just to name a few. Successful captain, superb batsman and an exceptional fielder. Many valuable contributions over the years will most certainly be remembered.

After scoring 25th Test Century.

It is rightly said that the captain is as good as a team. Reading this sentence in reverse order is what pointing specializes in . As a opposition captain he was ruthless, Pointing was more Stylish batsman, and a brilliant fielder.  Aggressive is Pointing's  middle name. Agony to watch him piling on the runs against your country. Retirement of Pointing and Tendulkar nearing retirement marks a spot from where Cricket will never be the same.Even though my country won 2011 wc , ur innings in 2003 final against us still hurts. Every Indian shares a passionate hate for you since that very innings. Shane Warne had the nightmares looking Sachin bat in Sharjah, but every Indian has nightmares even now thinking of 2003 WC Final. Ricky was on rampage that day.

Only Captain for Aus to go down as the one to have
won successive World cups.

I hear a lot of people say that Pointing was blessed with crucial players which improved his captaincy. True from a captain perspective, Not true form a player perspectives. His individual batting or fielding ability stayed intact throughout his carrier. You see Cricket analysts are bound to compare players. So when it comes to compare somebody of his class in a cricket worldwide, I see no one. You may answer when asked about Great Batsman of all times(SRT). Same holds true when asked about Great Captain of all time(Imraan Khan). When both these questions are compounded my answer would be Ricky Pointing. He had dual responsibility but more importantly he had the stuff within him with which legends are made of.

Agonizing times after losing Ashes 09. 

Where , I think, Pointing was wrong is choosing this moment for retirement. After the retirement of the key players he had to become a molder from a manager. His captaincy and team strength were exposed after there retirement. If one looks at the moment or the manner in which great captains Border, Imraan khan , Lara took retirement , Pointing will go on wrong side. He, should have retired as a captain but instead had to retire in  a manner  like removing the burden of bearing with a old out of form batsman from the team(like Ganguly in this years IPL). Ashes loses in England as well as in Australia dented his carrier as a Captain. That was the only time he was in news for the wrong reasons. The  pressure of being the "only" star batsman of the team took toll on his batting and captaincy. At one point Pointing was to remembered as the cricketer who brought 2 World cups(2007,2009) for his country but  so deep were the wounds of losing ashes and his ambiguous tactics that he will be thought as the captain who lost 3 Ashes (2005,2009, 2010-11).

Pointing's Double Century Stand(221)
against India at Adelaide Oval 

Arrogant, Aggressive , skillfully with the dash of panache. Watching Oz cricket 5:00 am in the morning will never be the same again. There is a department in which Ricky scores more than players of his competition. That is handling pressure situations. Ricky is the master of handling situations like these. Even in last World Cup (2011) they lost to India, a lone fighter Pointing made his century. It was do or die for both the teams and every Indian was traumatized since an average Indian knows what is it like when Pointing scores a century. Also for one thing Ricky was always superior in temperament. There was healthy competition for all the records that mattered and we enjoyed the tussle between Sachin and Pointing. With age both face the same problem and yet Pointing is the first one to realize that. He realizes the simple fact that though he is enjoying the game, his good enough is not good enough for the team . So while Indian pride themselves having witnessed  Sachin's  century of 100 , Pointing involved in 100 Test wins for Australia is huge compared to a personal milestone of the former.

While other people are welcome to say that Pointing had worldclass talent in his team which made his team aggressive , but what they comfortably ignore is the fact that he was audacious enough to take over a team after the retirement of key players.

…..Your retirement is one more reason to quit watching Test Cricket. Great Puller and Great Driver….Enriched the game by his feats..........RICKY POINTING!!!!

Farewell Pointing