Ponting earns fifth best rating of all time

His performance has lifted him to a new mark of 940 points and only four players in the history of the game have achieved a higher rating.

Australia captain Ricky Ponting now has the fifth best batting rating of all time in Tests after an outstanding showing during the first Ashes encounter against England in Brisbane.

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Ponting's scores of 196 and an unbeaten 60 not only helped his side to a 277-run win over its oldest rivals but also earned him nine rating points in the latest ICC Player Rankings.

They have lifted him to a new mark of 940 points and only four players in the history of the game -- fellow countryman Donald Bradman and the England trio of Len Hutton, Jack Hobbs and Peter May -- have achieved a higher rating.

Ponting's first innings hundred was his seventh three-figure score in his last eight Tests and lifted his career tally to 32 in this form of the game, level with former Australia captain Stephen Waugh.

And now only three players, the India duo of Sachin Tendulkar (35) and Sunil Gavaskar (34), and Brian Lara (34), the West Indies captain, have more Test hundreds.

Ponting's outstanding form means that Pakistan's Mohammed Yousuf, himself in the best form of his career, has so far been unable to assume top spot in the ICC Player Rankings for Test batsmen.

The two players have been trading blows like prizefighters in recent ties, matching each other hundred for hundred and, as the Brisbane Test ended, Yousuf scored yet another hundred to keep the pressure on at the top of the listings. More