Baby Punter's Become The Man.

Ricky Ponting has come a long, long way since I first met him as a "newbee" in the Australian test cricket team ten years' ago. I spent a memorable week with the team captained by Steve Waugh in Queensland where "Punter" was very much treated as the baby of the squad. Everyone already knew of his precocious talent but this did not stop the mickey-taking, especially as in those days he was so baby-faced. One morning we were all enjoying a steam bath when Waugh saw a kid's tricycle parked nearby and ordered Ponting to remove it from the vicinity, adding that he should ask permission before riding the tricycle in future. Ponting laughed along with everyone else, just happy to have made it into the team. A few years' later he confessed publicly to a drink problem after an embarassing and high profile night on the town in Sydney made it into the newspapers but, since that day, the man has never looked back. Now he is leading Australia from the front, his majestic 150 today making it his 38th test ton, which leaves him second in the all-time list of test centurions, and fourth in terms of most test runs scored, with plenty more still to come. He has become, quite simply, one of the greatest players ever to have graced test match cricket. Oh, and for the record, the tricycle did not belong to Punter after all!