2012 - The Year Of Goodbyes

Ricky Ponting Announces Retirement - And, From This Moment On, There Will Be Only Nice Things Said About Ponting .Thats the only best thing about retirement !!

Herschelle Gibbs ‏

What a player,entertainer of note and an all time great ricky ponting! Always loved his approach to batting... legend

Sanjay Manjrekar ‏

Ricky Ponting came out of that very typical Australian mould of batsmen. He was the quintessential Aussie batsman in style & approach.

Ricky Ponting - a great driver & a great puller ! Thats one thing that really stood out for me. Enriched the game by his feats.

Michael Vaughan

The best batsman I had the privilege to play against ... Ricky Ponting... #Punter Australia cricket will not be the same without him...

Matthew Hayden ‏

Punter, congratulations on a fantastic career. Your departure will be a massive hole in the Australian Cricket team #RickyPonting #Legend

Ajinkya Rahane

A legend announced retirement . The cricket world will miss Ricky Ponting on the field.

Tom Moody ‏

Congratulations Punter on an astonishing career been a privilege to play alongside you & watch from afar, you are truly a great Australian.

Virat Kohli ‏

Ricky ponting what an absolute legend. I am glad I had the honour of playing against him. Take a bow legend respect

Kevin Pietersen ‏

Ricky Ponting RETIRES.... ONE OF THE GREATS! I always got excited playing AUS, so I could watch him bat up close. Well done Punter! Legend

Scott Styris ‏

The best batsman I played against has decided he has had enough. I'm sure there will be some happy bowlers around!

The year 2012 seems to be the year of goodbyes ,first Dravid, then Laxman and now Ponting ,all three carry numbers next to their names ,which eventually are not enough to define the class of these players.

As per expectations Ricky Ponting who has second highest ( 27,471) runs in all international cricket announced his retirement .A aggressive captain , a perfect number three batsman , a great fielder   under whose captaincy Australia touched new heights and dominated the world cricket .Ponting's retirement has signalled another movement in the slow descending of the curtains on an era of batting giants ,as now only Sachin Tendulkar and Jacques Kallies remain the last two of a VANISHING TRIBE of monumental runs and awe-inspiring career longevity !!!!

Sachin Tendulkar had  38 Matches, 55 innings, 2483 (ave 51.72), 8 100s in his belt before Ponting's debut on 8 Dec 1995 ,and since than the debate of who is the better among them is going on . If we consider stats as the parameter than Ponting is ranked after Sachin in maximum records but their are many records which are unique to him. Ricky Ponting is the only man to have participated in more than 100 Test Match victories for his side  , Ponting has hit the winning run in a Test nine times ,which is more than anyone else in Test history.'This is where it started, and will finish'- yes Perth it is , had started his career on that ground and will end it on the same ,seems like a perfect script for a motivational story !

Well , the reason for the retirements of these legends was that they were not getting runs under their belt, in fact ,to be very precise they were actually missing the ball and getting bowled consistently ,which is so unlikely their way .The cricket fans have always praised the growing number of runs of these players but have always criticized the increase of number in their ages for their failure !

The irony is that the man who is playing before the debut of all these players is still playing at the age of 39 and with every retirement , and with his every failure , the question is raised that when is Sachin Tendulkar retiring .The reason for such questions is the expectations and their past performances .They have created so many historic events that people want a long inning from them in every match . I don’t know how Sachin deal with such question ,but i am expecting he will not hang his boot in a bad patch !   

Australia Vs South Africa – Matches Of Unique Records

Johannesburg March 2006 , Australia post down the highest total (434) of one day internationals  and  the chokers of international cricket successfully chased down the target with one ball to spare and made a record total of 438 ,record made and broken on the same day.

Cape Town November 2011 , Australia were struggling at 21-9 that too in a Test match and hits its 109 years low total with 47 all out .

These are some fascinating yet contradicting records which we can expect when two best sides in the world plays with each other .And continuing the recent year trends we have another  match going on at Adelaide which had created many records on the day one of the Test match . Australia inched closed to their highest one day score of 494 after 102 years and finished with 482-5 on day one . Apart from that their were series of records on first day which happened for the first time in international cricket viz Australia became the first team with three individual 100 plus scores on the opening day of the Test match , Michael Clarke became the first player to score four Test double centuries in a calendar year ,Clarke also became the first number 5 batsman to score a double century on day one of a Test . It was also Michael Clarke 21st Test 100 in 140 innings (at 31years-234days) unlike the other heroic performance a few days back by another captain Alastair Cook who also made his 21st Test 100 in 148 innings (at 27years-229days)  and they both had made their debut in India ! Coincidence !Well we have another batsman to complete his 100 tests on 23rd November ,the marauding opener of Indian team Virender Sehwag , record every where !

Well such records are made whenever pitch behave different from its usual nature .But watching someone to bat with Clarke’s dominance is a rarity , dealing quality fast bowlers with utter disdain and at the same time also considered as the one of the best players of spin , has to be special .

Still four days left in the test match with  South Africa still to bat we can expect many more records in the coming days with match swinging in either way or one way as both teams are full of world class top ranked bowlers and batsmen. Oh so much of unpredictability and still we say Test cricket is not interesting !