{"id":3991,"date":"2025-08-10T03:08:02","date_gmt":"2025-08-10T03:08:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tezgyan.com\/index.php\/2025\/08\/10\/ricky-ponting-picks-top-5-greatest-batters-ignores-virat-kohli-rohit-sharma-cricket-news\/"},"modified":"2025-08-10T03:08:02","modified_gmt":"2025-08-10T03:08:02","slug":"ricky-ponting-picks-top-5-greatest-batters-ignores-virat-kohli-rohit-sharma-cricket-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tezgyan.com\/index.php\/2025\/08\/10\/ricky-ponting-picks-top-5-greatest-batters-ignores-virat-kohli-rohit-sharma-cricket-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Ricky Ponting Picks Top 5 Greatest Batters, Ignores Virat Kohli & Rohit Sharma | Cricket News"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Ricky Ponting picks his top five greatest-ever batters. Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma and Steve Smith don’t find a place.<\/h2>\n
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Rohit Sharma (left) and Virat Kohli retired from Test cricket last month. (PTI Photo)<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n

Two Indians made it to Ricky Ponting\u2019s list of the top five greatest-ever batters: Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid. Ponting said that Brian Lara was the \u2018most skilful\u2019 one he ever played against, and followed it up by picking two modern, Fab Four choices: Joe Root and Kane Williamson.<\/p>\n

While Indian fans could be upset about not seeing Virat Kohli or Rohit Sharma included, interestingly, no Australians (for example, Steve Smith) got into the former captain-turned-pundit\u2019s exclusive group either. While Tendulkar (34357) and Dravid (24208) retired as India\u2019s highest run-scorers, Lara is the greatest ever to come out of the West Indies, and Root and Williamson have been leading their teams\u2019 torches for years.<\/p>\n

\u201cBrian Lara was the most skilful batsman I played against and when I was captain, he gave me more sleepless nights than anybody,” Ponting was quoted as saying by The Times<\/em>. \u201cSachin was technically as good as anyone I\u2019ve seen, along with Rahul Dravid; I\u2019d put Joe in there now as well, and Kane Williamson,” he added.<\/p>\n

While Root\u2019s stats are obvious as the second-highest run-scorer in Tests, Ponting said someone like Ben Stokes is gauged more with big-game impact.<\/p>\n

\u201cStokes is a hard one. Numbers don\u2019t define him. It\u2019s been about moments with him, he\u2019s a situation player. When things get toughest he\u2019s been at his best. When you\u2019re talking about the greats, you\u2019ve got to talk about impact on games,” he added.<\/p>\n

Ponting, separately, also picked Jaques Kallis as the greatest cricketer he had seen.<\/p>\n

\u2018Joe wasn\u2019t a great player for his first 11 games\u2019<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Ponting also hailed Root\u2019s transformation from an inconsistent skillful player who couldn\u2019t convert most of his 50s to now a world-beater.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat he\u2019s done the past five years is extraordinary. Look at the numbers: he\u2019s 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? Joe probably wasn\u2019t a great player for his first 100 games \u2014 he had 17 hundreds in 97 Tests \u2014 but he\u2019s turned into a great player. He has got 21 hundreds in his past 60 games (before the Oval Test),” Ponting said.<\/p>\n

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A team of reporters, writers and editors brings you news, analyses, features, live scores, results, stats and everything that\u2019s cricket from all over the globe. Follow @cricketnext<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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News<\/a> cricket<\/a> Ricky Ponting Picks Top 5 Greatest Batters, Ignores Virat Kohli & Rohit Sharma<\/span><\/div>\n
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Last Updated:August 10, 2025, 08:33 IST Ricky Ponting picks his top five greatest-ever batters. Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma and Steve Smith don’t find a place. Rohit Sharma (left) and Virat Kohli retired from Test cricket last month. (PTI Photo) Two Indians made it to Ricky Ponting\u2019s list of the top five greatest-ever batters: Sachin Tendulkar…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3992,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3991","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cricket"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tezgyan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tezgyan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tezgyan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tezgyan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tezgyan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3991"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tezgyan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3991\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tezgyan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tezgyan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tezgyan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tezgyan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}