<b>My best </b>
Recapturing some of the highlights of Ricky Ponting's career
01-Jan-2006
Ricky Ponting reveals three of his most cherished playing moments
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Catch
Sachin Tendulkar, Mumbai, 2000-01
"I was at midwicket and Mark Waugh bowled one to Sachin and he went back and pulled it and it hit Justin Langer right in the middle of the back and sort of ballooned up in the air. I think everybody in the whole ground thought I was no chance of getting to it and I just ... I don't know how I got there in the end. I put in about eight or ten running steps across the outfield and dived full length as far as I could and just got my fingers under it, and it changed the course of the Test, which we ended up going on and winning pretty convincingly. That would be my favourite catch."
"I was at midwicket and Mark Waugh bowled one to Sachin and he went back and pulled it and it hit Justin Langer right in the middle of the back and sort of ballooned up in the air. I think everybody in the whole ground thought I was no chance of getting to it and I just ... I don't know how I got there in the end. I put in about eight or ten running steps across the outfield and dived full length as far as I could and just got my fingers under it, and it changed the course of the Test, which we ended up going on and winning pretty convincingly. That would be my favourite catch."
Run out
Jacques Kallis, Sydney, 1997-98
"You get a lot of run outs in one-day cricket but because wickets are so hard to come by and so vital for us in the Test format, they probably stand out a little bit more. I remember one in Sydney quite a few years ago against South Africa. Stephen Waugh was bowling and I was fielding at square leg to Hansie Cronje. Kallis was the non-striker and Cronje sort of clipped one off his toes really firmly to me and it bounced once before me. I picked it up and had a shot at the bowlers' end stumps and knocked middle out of the ground before Kallis could get back. That was one I got a fair bit of pleasure out of."
"You get a lot of run outs in one-day cricket but because wickets are so hard to come by and so vital for us in the Test format, they probably stand out a little bit more. I remember one in Sydney quite a few years ago against South Africa. Stephen Waugh was bowling and I was fielding at square leg to Hansie Cronje. Kallis was the non-striker and Cronje sort of clipped one off his toes really firmly to me and it bounced once before me. I picked it up and had a shot at the bowlers' end stumps and knocked middle out of the ground before Kallis could get back. That was one I got a fair bit of pleasure out of."
Innings
127 v England, Headingley, 1997
"That was vital for me. I got picked on the Ashes tour, but only in the touring squad, and I didn't play the first three Tests of that series and came in for the fourth in Michael Bevan's spot. But that innings, being your first Test hundred, it's one that everyone wants to play and it was then, and always will be, a pretty special one in my career. That day I probably played as well as I have in any Test innings and that made it even more pleasing. I remember just really being on top of things and feeling at home at the crease. The ones that actually mean the most to you are probably the ones that you think you played better in anyway, so the first one is always going to be remembered a bit more, but I just thought I played really well."
"That was vital for me. I got picked on the Ashes tour, but only in the touring squad, and I didn't play the first three Tests of that series and came in for the fourth in Michael Bevan's spot. But that innings, being your first Test hundred, it's one that everyone wants to play and it was then, and always will be, a pretty special one in my career. That day I probably played as well as I have in any Test innings and that made it even more pleasing. I remember just really being on top of things and feeling at home at the crease. The ones that actually mean the most to you are probably the ones that you think you played better in anyway, so the first one is always going to be remembered a bit more, but I just thought I played really well."
This interview first appeared in the January issue of Inside Cricket