Former Indian batter Sachin Tendulkar and former Australian captain Ricky Ponting are certainly two of the greatest ever batters to have played the game of cricket. Ponting made his international debut after Tendulkar, whereas he retired before him. Ponting has often said that Tendulkar’s ‘hunger’ always inspired him.
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Tendulkar has scored the most runs in International cricket (34,357 runs with 100 centuries and 164 half-centuries), and Ponting comes third on the list (27,483 runs with 71 centuries and 146 half-centuries). Both of them shared a great rivalry on the field.
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In the later stages of their careers, both Ponting and Tendulkar were part of the Mumbai Indians’ setup in the Indian Premier League. They also won the title of IPL 2013, where Ponting left the captaincy midway into the tournament. Tendulkar also missed the last few matches including the final due to an injury.
Ricky Ponting hailed Sachin Tendulkar as the best player he played with or against
Ponting once wrote about Tendulkar, where he called him the best player he ever played with or against in his career. The former Australian captain had stated Tendulkar was the greatest batter after former Australian captain Sir Donald Bradman. He said that it is difficult to imagine if any player can achieve more than what Tendulkar has achieved.
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Ponting had insisted that the younger players can get the number one ranking, but doing it for a prolonged period like Tendulkar is what greatness is. He further went on to write that the players of their era just tried to play catch-up games with Tendulkar, and the Master Blaster was always ahead of the rest of the others.
“For me, he’s the greatest batsman after Don Bradman. While I hold Brian Lara in high regard because of his match-winning ability, I don’t think any batsman can achieve more out of the game than Sachin has,” Ponting wrote for a book titled ‘Tendulkar in Wisden: An anthology’.
“Younger players may reach No.1 over a period of 12 or 18 months — that’s not great. That’s having a good year. If you can do it as long as Sachin did, only then you be considered great.”
Ricky Ponting described Sachin Tendulkar in five words
In the same book, Ponting had described Tendulkar in five words i.e competitive, passionate, driven, composed and complete. He revealed that the Australian team used to sit for hours in order to come up with a plan against Tendulkar.
Former Australian pacer Brett Lee has also said that the Australian team always refrained from sledging Tendulkar on the field as they knew how he can punish them.
