Former Australia star ignores Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma to name his top five greatest-ever batters
Former Australia star ignores Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma to name his top five greatest-ever batters.
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Two Indian batters have made it into the list of the top five greatest-ever batters of the former Australia captain, Ricky Ponting, and neither of them is Virat Kohli or Rohit Sharma. The former leader has also picked Brian Lara as the most skillful one he has ever played against, besides addressing two modern players from the Fab Four, including Joe Root and Kane Williamson.
Indian fans won’t be happy with no names of Kohli and Rohit, but interestingly, Ponting has avoided keeping an Australian player in the list in the form of Steve Smith or someone else. The former captain went with Sachin and Rahul as the two players, who ended their careers with 34357 and 24208 runs respectively.
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“Brian Lara was the most skilful batsman I played against, and when I was captain, he gave me more sleepless nights than anybody. Sachin was technically as good as anyone I’ve seen, along with Rahul Dravid; I’d put Joe in there now as well, and Kane Williamson.” Ponting expressed in The Times during a recent conversation.
Ricky Ponting keeps Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid in his top-five greatest batters
Even though Root is the current second leading Test getter, Ponting feels that Stokes can bring the big-game impact. He separately went with Jacques Kallis as the greatest cricketer he had seen. Ponting also hailed Root’s transformation of converting the 50s to 100s.
“Stokes is a hard one. Numbers don’t define him. It’s been about moments with him; he’s a situation player. When things get toughest, he’s been at his best. When you’re talking about the greats, you’ve got to talk about impact on games.” The Tasmanian batter, who is the fourth leading run-getter in international cricket with 27483 runs, claimed.
“What he’s done the past five years is extraordinary. Look at the numbers: he’s got 13,500 runs. I rank players on how long they can stay at the top of their powers. You can be a great player for 30 to 40 games, but can you do it for 150 games?” Ricky Ponting concluded the conversation.
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