Ponting wins third Border Medal

In a year when he defined his captaincy with a crushing 5-0 Ashes recovery, Ricky Ponting has created further history by becoming the first man to win the cleansweep of the Allan Border Medal, the Test Player of the Year and the One-Day Player of the Year. Like last season, Michael Hussey was the runner-up in the Border Medal tally but unlike 2006 - when Ponting squeezed home by only three votes - this year's win was as comprehensive as the Ashes campaign.

Ponting, the only man to win multiple Border Medals, polled 107 votes, almost doubling Hussey's 58 and the 56 collected by Shane Warne in third place. Warne was two votes short of capping off his dream retirement year with a second consecutive Test title, finishing with ten votes to Ponting's 12. In the limited-overs contest Andrew Symonds (18) was next in line after Ponting (20).

Ponting said we was amazed to win the one-day award and the Border Medal - he thought Hussey deserved to be the hot favourite - and it drew to a close "the best cricketing year of my life". "I knew I'd had a good Test year," he said. "I thought my one-day season had been very up and down. To win the Allan Border Medal on top of a five-nil Ashes series is a really good year. If we can finish off and win the Commonwealth Bank Series it'd be almost a perfect year for all of us."

He said the focus now turned to Australia's World Cup defence after 18 months of pure determination to regain the Ashes. "The first part of the summer was focused on the Ashes and making sure we played a certain style and certain brand of cricket through the Ashes and we managed to probably exceed everybody's expectations," Ponting said. "Since the 2005 Ashes series our Test cricket has been almost flawless. We haven't lost a Test and we've won every one bar one."

Ponting dominated Australia's stellar year - they won all ten of the Tests played in the voting period - beginning with two centuries in the three-match tour of South Africa, whistling through Bangladesh with an unbeaten 118 and finishing with a brilliant Ashes series that featured back-to-back hundreds in the opening two games. His ten Tests yielded 1115 runs at 74.33.

Warne's final year of Test cricket almost provided a fairytale ending but despite polling in six of the ten Tests, his surprising lack of any three-vote games meant he was denied the Test award. He topped Australia's wicket tally with 49 dismissals and Stuart Clark, who claimed 47, completed his impressive debut year with third place.

In the ODI arena, Ponting's 968 runs were enough to earn him his first title since 2002. Australia warmed up for their World Cup defence with their first Champions Trophy win but despite Ponting's disappointing form in that tournament, his outstanding finish to last year's VB Series and his excellent efforts in the current CB Series pushed him over the line ahead of Symonds and Michael Clarke. Ponting's two centuries in his last two games - 111 against New Zealand at Perth and 104 against England at Melbourne - wrapped up the prize.

Ponting was famously annoyed last year by a tongue-in-cheek segment in which Phil Tufnell mocked the Australians for "dropping the Ashes". But this year, Tufnell's return effort went down slightly better. "I suppose you want me to eat humble pie but I prefer doughnuts because that's what we bloody served up to you all summer," Tufnell said in a recorded message. "I've got a little tip for you: don't upset Ricky Ponting. He turns into a run-machine and every time he smashed us for four he saw my face on that ball. During the Test series you had four players retire. We had four players retire as well - they just don't know it yet."