Former Australian captain said he did not end his glittering career as he would have liked to.
Former Australian great Ricky Ponting has admitted he should have walked away from the game sooner than his did in 2012.
The Tasmanian-born star said his stubborn nature to try and get to his best again kept him sticking around.
But in the clear hindsight that comes with retirement from all forms of the game, Ponting was candid in saying he stuck around for too long.
“I probably played two years longer than I should have. I think within myself I knew I couldn’t get better,” Ponting said.
“I felt if I did everything I could maintain a certain level. I probably, you know, from 120-30 Test matches, I probably didn’t think I could play better than I’d played at that stage.”
However, Ponting said it was not a personal reason why he wanted to be the type of player who dominated attacks around the world, but rather he wanted to inspire the next generation.
“I probably played a little bit too long, but that wasn’t for me. I wasn’t playing for me, I was playing for the young guys that were in our team,” he said.
“Great teams that I played in had a really solid core of experienced players and great characters and, I might be patting myself on the back here, but I thought I was one of those guys.”
Ponting did have his fare share of critics at the end of his career, with many pundits and former Internationals players urging him to what he has now admitted and step down from the Australia team.
Regardless of his admission, Ponting’s career will still echo through the history books of his country and world cricket, with the 39-year-old scoring 13,378 runs from 168 Test matches, including 41 centuries and 13,704 from ODI’s.
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