Tendulkar, Bradman And Lara Snubbed As Ponting Picks 'Best Cricketer Ever'

Former Australia captain Ricky Ponting has picked the "greatest cricketer that's ever played" the game. During his career, Ponting played against some of the finest cricketers, be it Sachin Tendulkar or Brian Lara. However, the legendary batter has labelled former South Africa all-rounder Jacques Kallis as the best of the best. To back his claim, Ponting highlighted Kallis' exploits with both bat and ball. In an illustrious career spanning 19 years, Kallis was an exceptional batter, a penetrative fast bowler and one of the safest slip fielders the game has ever seen.

"Jacques Kallis is the best cricketer that's ever played. I don't care. I don't care about all the others. Full stop. 13,000 runs. 44 or 45 Test hundreds. And 300 wickets. Either one of those careers is outstanding. You can take 300 Test wickets every day of the week, and you take 45 Tests 100s. He's got them both. He was just a born cricketer," Ponting said on The Howie Games podcast.

"Unorthodox in the slips, didn't drop anything in the slips, had a sort of funny technique, caught everything. I think he's the best and the most underrated because he's not talked about very much at all. Probably because of his personality and his character. He's not out there. He's low-key, yeah. Hasn't done much media work. So, he's sort of one of those forgotten-about ones a little bit," he added.

Kallis is the only player ever to achieve the double of 10,000 runs and 200 wickets in both Tests and ODIs. He is also the only one to have accumulated 12,000 or more runs and taken 500 or more wickets.

As per ICC's website, Kallis won the Player of the Match award 23 times in 166 Test matches, the most by any player in the format. In all, he was Player of the Match 57 times across formats, with 32 of those coming in ODIs, the joint-fourth-highest in the format.

One of his more memorable match award-winning performances came against Pakistan in Karachi in 2007. He recorded hundreds in each innings: he made 155 in the first in South Africa's total of 450 and remained unbeaten on 100 in the second as the Proteas declared on 264/7.