Ricky Ponting goes out on a high

RICKY Ponting has bowed out of first-class cricket in deserving style with a commanding 169 not out for English county Surrey.

Ponting bows out with ton

RICKY Ponting has bowed out of first-class cricket in deserving style with a commanding 169 not out for English county Surrey.

The former Australia captain moved from his overnight 41 to 108 by lunch on the final day and he remained unbeaten throughout his seven-hour, 319-ball innings, which included 18 fours, to help Surrey rescue a draw against Nottinghamshire.

He could well have been batting not at the The Oval but at Trent Bridge. If he had not chosen to retire from Test cricket - who knows? - Ashton Agar might never have got to the wicket.

It was all apparent in his final first-class innings that the 38-year-old, who retired from international cricket in December 2012 with a Test average of 51.85 , can still perform. The pity, at least for his countrymen, was that he was not still doing so for Australia.

The cricketer who is widely regarded as the second-best batsman in Australia's history, after Sir Donald Bradman, was progressing towards the 82nd and last century of his first-class career at the same time as Australia's middle order was collapsing.

He was appearing as a kind of galactico for Surrey at The Oval, another great Test arena at which, strangely, he had not hitherto made a century.

There would seem to be no good reason for Ponting to retire from all forms of cricket, as he intends to do in October, other than for family reasons. That he went to 150 with an all-run four on a fiercely hot day and was still unbeaten when this match against Nottinghamshire was drawn, suggested that he was far from sated. So why exit?

“It was nice to finish knowing I can still play,” he said. “There is no doubt I could continue - and play well. But I have to retire at some stage and that's it - even if I get a big offer next year. I am 38 now, have been on the road for 20 years and have a young family. That is starting to mean more than playing cricket.

“I have had off-the-field offers in Australia, including commentating on the next Big Bash (League). I am interested in coaching and feel I have a lot to offer technically and tactically.”

Given that he batted all day, Ponting caught only a glimpse of the play at Trent Bridge on television when he came off for lunch and tea. "I know a little bit about Ashton Agar. He made 70-odd for Western Australia against Tasmania (Ponting's state) at the end of our season and I was surprised to see him going in No11 for Australia. He is a pretty cool customer and it was heart-breaking to hear he had fallen two runs short of a century."

Ponting is contracted to play for Surrey until the end of the month, which means that English followers of the game will have their last sight of him in Twenty20 cricket. A shame in a way because his batting is too cultured and dignified for that.

All the classy shots were evident last night against a decent Nottinghamshire attack: the swivelled pull for four against the new ball, the stride down the pitch and flick through mid-on, the lofted drive over mid-off, which brought him his fourteenth four and his century.

When Colin Cowdrey played what was supposed to have been his final first-class match, on this ground in 1975, Intikhab Alam, who was bowling for Surrey, gave him one off the mark. Such niceties do not occur these days, and, anyway, Ponting probably would not have approved of such a gesture. He had to chisel out these runs, the one player in the middle wearing a sweater, but that is how he would have preferred it.

Had he played more county cricket - Ponting had a spell with Somerset in 2004 - he would have reached 100 hundreds. There was a further link with Trent Bridge in that this, his 82nd century, took him level with Darren Lehmann, the Australia coach.

Still, Ponting has amassed quite enough impressive statistics and garnered quite sufficient praise. "It didn't hit me that I had retired until I walked up Tthe Oval steps when the match was drawn," he said. "I had been in the zone." Bowlers the world over would reckon that he had never left it all his career.

The Times