Even playing Sheffield Shield cricket as a really young player, he was peeling off double-hundreds for Tasmania, which was just incredible for someone so young. So he obviously had enormous talent, but the things that stood out to me were that he had unbelievable drive and competitiveness. He just wanted to win. His drive to keep getting better, keep working hard on his game, setting the standards of training for everyone else to follow was just exemplary.
It was a good batting pitch, but the margin for error against him was also very small. He played brilliantly off the back foot, so you couldn’t really test him out with the short stuff because he was probably one of the best, if not the best, hooker and puller I’ve ever seen. But he was also quick to jump on the front foot and drive you through midwicket or down the ground as well. He just had this drive to keep batting. Couple that with his talent, which made it a pretty scary proposition to come up against.
What’s clear to me with the great players that I was able to watch – not just Ricky but others like Sachin or Brian Lara or Jacques Kallis – is their ability to see the ball so clearly out of the bowler’s hand and react on instinct.
Ricky’s someone I really admired because being captain of the Australian team, he had so much going on – dealing with the press, making sure the team was okay, dealing with sponsors, with Cricket Australia, selectors – there were so many external distractions, but he had this unbelievable ability to take that captain’s hat off, put his batting helmet on, and then from the first ball, just see it and react and play on his instincts. A lot of the great players have this amazing ability to be able to disregard all those external distractions and play that ball with 100% attention.
His competitiveness stood out off the field too: even if it was a fielding drill, a game of golf or table tennis, he’d have to win it. That sort of dragged a lot of other players along, certainly when he was captain. You just couldn’t help but be inspired by the standards he set. He really enjoyed wins with his team-mates.
It was so good to bat with Ricky. The bowlers felt so much pressure bowling to him that they almost tried to relax when you were on strike, so you generally got a few more loose balls.
Clarity, both of speech and thought, is one of Ricky’s other significant strengths. It helped him a lot with his captaincy because sometimes we’d have team meetings and different things were being said and we’d be going off on different tangents. Ricky would just sit there quietly and pick the right time. He’d have exactly what needed to be said and he’d articulate it in the most succinct way.
Whatever the format, he focused very hard on making sure his basic game was in good working order and then just adapted to the situation. He’s the ultimate team man. He’d do whatever the team needed.
I think playing with him definitely raised my level.
As told to Nagraj Gollapudi
Stats are for the 2000-2025 period
