Ricky Ponting on the sacrifices Rianna made for his cricket career

In their first-ever interview as a couple, the former cricket captain and his wife Rianna come together after months apart to discuss family and balance.

Five minutes into Stellar’s chat with Ricky Ponting and his wife Rianna, there’s a knock at the door and in bursts their six-year-old son, Fletcher. He has something exciting to show his dad, and it simply can’t wait until the interview is over. Poetically, it’s a cricket ball.

“[Fletcher] is starting cricket and he just got his cricket pack sent. He got his new cricket ball and he’s super excited,” Rianna explains, as Fletcher proudly holds up the red ball.

But Ricky can’t reach out and touch it – he’s on the call via Zoom, seeing out the end of quarantine in a Sydney hotel room, having come home after more than three months in Dubai spent coaching an Indian Premier League cricket side, the Delhi Capitals, to the final.

“It’s his first-ever session, and I’ll be back in time for it,” Ricky declares. “Which is nice.”

“I miss my best friend. The kids miss their dad. We’re lucky to really yearn for someone like that.” (Picture: Damian Bennett)

After what has seemed like the longest year on record, the end-of-year summer ritual of cricket has finally arrived to lift Australia’s spirits. And few are looking forward to it more than the Ponting family.

The couple have been married for 18 years, and are well versed in the intense travelling demands required of Ricky in his position as one of Australia’s greatest-ever cricket players, then captain, then coach, then Seven Network commentator.

If he’s lucky, he’s been able to spend a month or two at home in any given year – which the pair are both willing to admit has kept their marriage healthy. “On tour I’d noticed that about the three-week mark was when people started to miss home,” says Ricky, who turns 46 next week.

“So Rianna and I had a pact that we wouldn’t do more than three or four weeks apart. The family would always come to find me somewhere in the world, whether England, Sri Lanka or India.”

“She’s allowed me to live the life I’ve wanted to live.” (Picture: Damian Bennett)

Then COVID hit, and with it the travel and quarantine restrictions – all of which means that Ricky’s Dubai stint marked the longest stretch of time they’ve gone without seeing each other.

And it has been hardest on Rianna, who saw out the period at home in Melbourne with their children Emmy, 12, Matisse, 9, and Fletcher. “I just miss him,” she says of her husband. “I miss my best friend. The kids miss their dad. We’re lucky to really yearn for someone like that.”

It’s a candid insight from a couple who have long kept their relationship private.

As captain of the national Test side from 2004 to 2011 (and the one-day side from 2002) – known as Australia’s “golden era” of cricket – Ricky experienced nearly the same level of fame and scrutiny as the prime minister, yet this interview and the photo shoot for Stellar that followed after he got home are the first they’ve done as a family.

“We are private by nature,” says Rianna. “When I met Rick, he was always in the media. That was his role and I never saw it as a dual role – he would do his thing, come home and we would live our normal life. It was nice to do that without people watching.”

“The older your kids get, the harder it is to go away.” (Picture: Damian Bennett)

“The idea of no-one caring [about me] was much easier than having all that scrutiny.” (Picture: Damian Bennett)

And back in 2001, when she first locked eyes with Ricky at a Melbourne sports bar (and began a whirlwind romance that would see them married eight months later), the wives and girlfriends of players weren’t yet inhabiting an ecosystem of their own.

“I think it changed when the beautiful Lara Bingle [now Worthington, who was in a high-profile relationship from 2007 till 2010 with Michael Clarke, Ricky’s successor as captain] came along and made WAGs interesting,” the 41-year-old Rianna tells Stellar now.

“Prior to that, cricket WAGs weren’t really a thing. And thank goodness! The idea of no-one caring [about me] was much easier than having all that scrutiny.”

Ricky is quick to point out the sacrifices Rianna made so he could fulfil the sporting dreams he had growing up in Launceston in northern Tasmania. “She won’t admit it, but she’s allowed me to live the life I’ve wanted to live,” he says.

“I was taken along for such a magical ride.” (Picture: Supplied)

“Even sacrificing her own career. She’s a qualified lawyer and solicitor [but] she’s never practised a day. She knew she couldn’t if we were to work. Rianna did such a big job looking after the kids when I was playing. Obviously, there are challenges. But I don’t remember even having any phone calls when she would tell me how hard it was. She made sure I was right to play.”

But Rianna disagrees: “I don’t think I’ve sacrificed anything, though. I was taken along for such a magical ride. I look back now and think we took it for granted. What we got to experience was incredible.”

In the end, it was his young family that played a crucial role in Ricky’s decision to call an end to his international cricket career in 2012.

“I remember right at the end, I was packing my bags for one of the last overseas tours, and Emmy was sitting in the suitcase saying, ‘Dad, you’re not going this time. I’m not letting you go!’” He pauses. “The older your kids get, the harder it is to go away.”

While the life of a professional athlete is innately a selfish one, his retirement has given the couple the chance to collaborate on projects such as the Ponting Foundation, which helps young Australians with cancer, and Ponting Wines, which launched in May and is now celebrating the release of the exclusive 366, a shiraz cabernet sauvignon that bears Ricky’s Test player number.

“[The wine world] is so far from the way I was brought up,” admits Ricky.

“Now that I’m retired, whatever time we have we cherish.” (Picture: Damian Bennett)

“My dad wouldn’t have had a sip of wine in his life. [Home] was always a beer and barbecue sort of environment. But I was first introduced to wine by some senior members of the teams I played in. The older guys would have a glass of red with dinner, rather than a beer or a Coke. Then I met Rianna and she was more of a wine drinker. We have our love of great food and great wine in common.”

Rianna credits the label for getting her through lockdown – not just as a source of wine, but because she could work to promote it. “It was such a blessing to have,” she says.

“Rather than waking up seeing how many COVID cases we had in Victoria, it gave us something to focus on. I don’t know how we would have got through this year without it.”

And it’s something they want to pass down to their children. “We don’t see it as just sticking our label on a bottle and walking away and hoping it sells,” Ricky says. “It’s something we want our kids to be proud of as well, in years to come. They can take over the running of the business.”

If they want to, that is. For now, Fletcher is showing the same spark of athleticism as his father, although being born after Ricky’s retirement left him thinking his father was a golfer, Rianna says with a laugh.

Ricky Ponting and his family star on the cover of this Sunday’s Stellar.

“[Our daughters] aren’t sporty – our middle one would rather look in a mirror than catch a ball – but our little boy, as soon as he came into the world, loved anything with a bat or a ball. He gravitated towards it. I think Rick was the same. It’s in you or it’s not.”

While Rianna jokes that she’s done her fair share of time on the cricket sideline, this summer it’s Ricky’s turn. “I look forward to being the one driving Fletcher around,” he says. “If he wants to do it, I’ll help him out, and I most definitely won’t be pushing him into anything.

“Now that I’m retired, whatever time we have we cherish. We spend as much time together as we can. Because for big chunks of my [career], we had a lot of time apart, only catching up over the phone. It’s my chance to be the best husband and father, and [for us to] live life like normal people.”

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