The legendary Australia National Cricket Team skipper Ricky Ponting has named a player who, according to him is the best Test batsman in world cricket at the moment.
Ricky Ponting surprisingly snubbed the England National Cricket Team superstar Joe Root, who is in the form of his life and is very close to breaking Sachin Tendulkar’s record for most runs in Test cricket history.
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He probably is the best Test batter in the world – Ricky Ponting on Harry Brook
According to Ricky Ponting, the 25-year-old England batting sensation Harry Brook is the world’s best Test batter. Brook, who made his Test debut against South Africa at The Oval in 2022 was hailed by Ponting.
Speaking on The ICC Review, the Australian great stated that the England batter has been doing a great job and showered rich praise on him for his heroics in overseas Tests.
“He probably is (the best Test batter in the world) right now,” Ponting said of Brook. He is doing some pretty amazing things and most of them he is doing away from home.”
“That’s his seventh hundred now away from home out of eight or nine hundreds and it’s the way he gets his runs, with class and he gets them quickly under this new regime and I love watching him play.”
Notably, Brook has scored 7 centuries in his first 10 Tests away from home. This is a record as previously, Donald Bradman (1934), Neil Harvey (1953), Ken Barrington (1961), and Chris Broad (1988) had slammed 6 tons each in their first 10 Tests away from home:
Overall, he has an average of 89.35 in away Tests, which is way too high compared to his average on home soil (38.05).
Harry Brook currently occupies the No.1 position in the ICC Test Rankings
On Wednesday, December 11, Harry Brook dethroned his teammate Joe Root to become the No.1 batter in the ICC Test Rankings for the batters.
He climbed to the top following his exceptional performance in the recent two Test matches against the New Zealand National Cricket Team.
Brook played a remarkable knock of 171 runs in the first game and followed it up with sensational innings of 123 and 55 runs in the second match. These performances helped him overtake Joe Root, who was at the top spot since he went past Kane Williamson in the rankings in July this year.
Also, Root, despite being one of the greatest batters in the history of cricket, recently claimed that Brook is overall the best cricketer in the world.
I think he’s a generational type of player – Ricky Ponting
Ricky Ponting was the head coach of the Delhi Capitals franchise in the Indian Premier League till the last season.
He had spent INR 4 crore to rope in the services of Brook at the IPL 2024 auction despite his awful run with Sunrisers Hyderabad in his debut IPL season. Brook didn’t participate in the league in 2024 as he decided to pull out of the IPL 2024 due to a family issue.
Meanwhile, Ricky Ponting said that he ensured that the Delhi Capitals picked Brook at the auction because he is a generational talent. He also opined that the best of Brook is yet to come. He said:
“I got him in the IPL auction last year because I think he’s a generational type of player,” Ponting noted.
“I think he’s really starting to show that now at Test level and I think he can do the same across all three formats.”