RICKY PONTING - THE PUNTER

Ricky Ponting's 100th Test victory

The winning machine

Only three other players have won more than 75 Tests, which puts Ricky Ponting's record into perspective

S Rajesh

September 3, 2011

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	Ricky Ponting has scored almost 2000 more runs in Test wins than the next-best batsman © AFP Enlarge
Related Links Daniel Brettig : The proudest century  Players/Officials: Ricky Ponting Teams: Australia

For most players, playing 100 Test matches is a huge achievement - only 50 have achieved it in the history of Test cricket. However, with this victory against Sri Lanka in Galle, Ricky Ponting became the first player to be a part of 100 Test victories. It's a huge achievement, and a telling commentary on the quality of the player and the team he has been a part of.

Only three other players have won more than 75 Tests, an indication of just how difficult it is to reach the landmark. The top seven players with most winsare all Australians who were an intrinsic part of the dominant team of the 1990s and 2000s - the first non-Australian in the list is Mark Boucher, with 70 victories. He is also the first active player in the list after Ponting, with team-mate Jacques Kallis following closely on 69. With 30 wins needed to get to a century, though, it's almost certain that neither will get to that mark, which means Ponting will be the lone member of this club for a while.

Only Australians and South Africans are represented in the table below, so here's a look at the players who've been a part of the most wins for the other major countries - Viv Richards (63), Sachin Tendulkar (61), Muttiah Muralitharan (54), Inzamam-ul-Haq (49), Andrew Strauss (44), Stephen Fleming (33). It also puts Ponting's record in perspective to see that no player from three of the top teams - Pakistan, England and New Zealand - has managed to reach the 50-win landmark.

Batsmen who played in most Test wins

Batsman	Test wins	Total Tests	Percentage
Ricky Ponting	100	153	65.36
Shane Warne	92	145	63.45
Steve Waugh	86	168	51.19
Glenn McGrath	84	124	67.74
Adam Gilchrist	73	96	76.04
Mark Waugh	72	128	56.25
Matthew Hayden	71	103	68.93
Mark Boucher	70	139	50.36
Justin Langer	70	105	66.67
Jacques Kallis	69	145	47.59

Of Ponting's 100 wins, a fifth has come against England, but that's also because he has played 35 Tests against them, which works out to 23% of his total Tests. In fact, Ponting's record against England is a bit odd: his overall average against them is 44.21, and in wins it goes up slightly - but still not to his usual levels - of 48.20. In England, though, his average in wins goes down to 32.71, though that also includes two wins against Pakistan in England. His average in defeats in England is 40.85, and in draws it's 65.16.

Overall, his average in wins against most teams isn't that much higher than his overall average against them, but the one exception is his stats against India - an average of 47.88 overall, and 74.20 in wins.

Ponting in wins versus each opponent

Versus	Tests	Runs	Average	100s/ 50s	Overall ave
England	20	1446	48.20	5/ 5	44.21
West Indies	18	1546	61.84	6/ 5	59.06
South Africa	14	1353	61.50	6/ 6	56.38
Pakistan	13	1346	67.30	5/ 4	66.82
New Zealand	10	713	59.41	1/ 5	57.47
Sri Lanka	9	579	41.35	0/ 5	47.31
India	8	742	74.20	3/ 2	47.88
Bangladesh	4	260	65.00	1/ 2	65.00
Zimbabwe	3	290	96.67	1/ 1	96.67
ICC World XI	1	100	50.00	0/ 1	50.00

In the first three years of his career, Ponting wasn't such a force with the bat, averaging only 36.63 in 22 Tests during that period, and 39.00 in wins. Happily for him, his most prolific period with the bat coincided with the best period for Australia as a Test team, when they had a power-packed batting line-up, a strong pace attack, and a wizard for a spinner. With all bases covered, Australia won Tests everywhere they went, and Ponting contributed heavily in those matches. Out of 87 matches that Ponting played between 1999 and 2006, Australia won 64, which is almost 74%. His average in those wins was a staggering 71.63, and he scored 25 centuries in those 64 games - an average of a ton every 2.56 Tests.

His loss of batting form, though, has coincided with a dip in Australia's fortunes - they've lost many of their heavyweights, and consequently the results have dipped as well. In the last 44 Tests that Ponting has played, Australia have won barely over 50%, and Ponting's average in those wins has dipped to around 40.00. In these 23 wins he has scored only two hundreds, a huge drop from 25 in 64.

Ponting in Test wins, over the years

Period	Tes Wins	Runs	Average	100s/ 50s	Overall Tests	Overall ave
Till Dec 1998	13	703	39.05	1/ 5	22	36.63
Jan 1999 to Dec 2006	64	6161	71.63	25/ 20	87	65.43
Jan 2007 onwards	23	1511	39.76	2/ 11	44	40.63
Career	100	8375	58.97	28/ 36	153	53.26

Only six batsmen have scored more than 5000 runs in Test wins, of which four are Australians. Ponting's tally of 8375 runs is easily the highest among them, but in terms of the tally as a percentage of career runs, a couple of Australians have a slightly higher number: Matthew Hayden scored 71% of his total Test runs in wins, while for Justin Langer that percentage was almost 68. Ponting scored 67.48% of his total runs in wins, which is much higher than the percentages for non-Australian batsmen. Tendulkar has scored less than 37% of his total runs in wins, which is an indication of much tougher it's been for India to win Test matches. (Till the end of 2000, only 24% of Tendulkar's runs came in wins; since then, with India improving as a Test team, it's gone up to 46%.)

Batsmen with more than 5000 runs in Test wins

Batsman	Tests	Runs	Average	100s/ 50s	Total runs	% runs in wins
Ricky Ponting	100	8375	58.97	28/ 36	12,411	67.48
Steve Waugh	86	6460	69.46	25/ 25	10,927	59.12
Matthew Hayden	71	6154	55.44	23/ 19	8625	71.35
Jacques Kallis	69	5591	65.01	19/ 26	11,947	46.80
Sachin Tendulkar	61	5473	67.56	20/ 21	14,965	36.57
Justin Langer	70	5229	48.41	15/ 19	7696	67.94

However, with Australia being such a strong side with so many match-winners, they weren't as reliant on Ponting to score runs and set up wins as some of the teams with slightly weaker batting line-ups. Ponting contributed about 15% of the total runs scored off the bat in the 100 Tests that Australia won. For Kallis and Tendulkar, the percentage is around 16.50; for Rahul Dravid, who just misses out on the 5000-run cut-off (click here for the full list of highest run-scorers in wins) the percentage is 16.99, just a tad higher than Tendulkar's; for Don Bradman, it's 28.25% (4813 runs out of 17036), which puts some of the other numbers in perspective.

Percentage of team runs in wins for batsmen with 5000+ runs in wins

Batsman	Runs in wins	Team runs in wins	Percentage
Ricky Ponting	8375	55,743	15.02
Steve Waugh	6460	45,691	14.14
Matthew Hayden	6154	39,634	15.53
Jacques Kallis	5591	33,737	16.57
Sachin Tendulkar	5473	32,908	16.63
Justin Langer	5229	38,375	13.63

And finally, a look at the players with the highest win percentages among those with at least 50 Test victories. Only 22 players make the cut, of which 12 are Australians. And when ranked by win percentages, the top eight are Australians, with Gordon Greenidge and Richards rounding off the top ten.

In this table, Ponting only comes in in sixth place - there are five Australians who have a higher win percentage. Ponting's loss percentage among these ten is second only to Mark Waugh's, no doubt because of the defeats suffered over the last couple of years. Adam Gilchrist's numbers are incredible because of the exceptionally low number of defeats and draws. In the last two rows, the number that stands out the most for Greenidge and Richards is the draw percentage - it's much higher than for all the Australians, which indicates the manner in which Australia have played Tests over the last 15 years, and the way Test cricket itself has changed in the last couple of decades.

Highest win percentage among players with at least 50 Test wins

Player	Tests	W/L/D	Win %	Loss %	Draw %
Adam Gilchrist	96	73/11/12	76.04	11.46	12.50
Brett Lee	76	54/11/11	71.05	14.47	14.47
Matthew Hayden	103	71/18/14	68.93	17.48	13.59
Glenn McGrath	124	84/20/20	67.74	16.13	16.13
Justin Langer	105	70/17/18	66.67	16.19	17.14
Ricky Ponting	153	100/28/25	65.36	18.30	16.34
Shane Warne	145	92/26/27	63.44	17.93	18.62
Mark Waugh	128	72/27/29	56.25	21.09	22.65
Gordon Greenidge	108	57/14/37	52.78	12.96	34.26
Viv Richards	121	63/19/39	52.07	15.70	32.23

S Rajesh is stats editor of ESPNcricinfo

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