Watch out for this one

He has achieved everything that is probably worth winning

16 consecutive test win's (Steve Waugh only got 15 Gilly skippered #13 when Steve was out injured with his calf)

17 if Australia wins in Perth. He is on his own as a captain

Hat-trick World Cup winning player

Dual World Cup winning captain

Test Average 58.35

His first match was in Perth where he scored 96 in his first test match against Sri Lanka in 1995 which is why I think this may be on.

Honestly what else has Ricky got to achieve ?

No one else in cricket has ever done or are likely in the foreseeable future to go anywhere near whatever he has done.

He will stand out on his own for ages, and when someone crunches stats in 200 years he will still stand out.

What's left ?

Except I think his resolve to continue may have lessened over the past week. And we now approach the test ground he started it at.

Maybe he might like Ian Chappell walk a bit earlier than we thought he would. And become an iconic enigma of Australian cricket.

I think Punters retirement is on.

Don't think so. His reflexes are as good as ever and I think he wants to win the Ashes in England in 2009. He'll also have an eye on the number of Test centuries by the time he has to retire.

I think he aged a bit this week "Nostromo" I would not be surprised if he considers the Ashes 2009 (after another Australian summer) and the next biggy the 2011 world cup as one or two bridges to far.

I think he is close to tossing it.

Gee i don't reckon Acker. I hope not anyway.

He has just shaken off Warne, and is now able to be his own man, so to speak. I don't reckon he will walk away from that for a while.

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The thought police are everywhere..............

He has had a big week

I reckon he's reflecting.

Honestly his current achievements will take years if not the best part of century's to run down anyway.

Some of them may never get run down

Except for a few personal item's I just can not see what he has got left to achieve.

A lot of others are going to spend a lifetime trying to achieve 25% of what he has done already.

that's why I wonder.

I am not too fond of Ponting the man (though I believe he is the best batsman for a generation), but even I think that the guy has more bottle than to think of chucking it because of a few criticisms. On the contrary, I think Ponting will want to go out on a high and what would be better than Ashes 2009? But I agree that he will have no plans for World Cup 2011.

I don't think he'd be human if he hadn't given it a little thought over the past week or so, but seriously I hope and doubt that he'd give the game up now. All time records of all sorts are in his grasp and eminently achievable.

One problem I will have with Ponting's legacy is that I don't think he's anywhere near as good a captain as his results suggest - I honestly think that Australia are that far ahead of the rest of the pack that the best in captaincy is not required from this team. Waugh, Taylor and Border were all significantly better captains. Ponting to my mind is up with Kim Hughes; he often looks clueless in the field and certainly doesn't seem to come up with the innovative field placements that, say, Stephen Fleming has done. In addition to this, the example by which he leads his team is questionable - often demanding that other teams take his players' words on catches and being 'upset' when the opposition fails to back that initiative with players like Clarke on his team.

A great player no doubt, and the stats will say a great captain to boot, but too early to quit. In another question though, could he stand down from captaincy??

Taylor and Waugh both had the luxury of taking over good sides built for the majority ground up from scratch by Allan Border.

To compare Ponting's captaincy to Kim Hughes captaincy is ludicrous

You would be better off comparing Stephen Fleming's captaincy to Kim Hughes captaincy. At the end of the day for all the applauding of "nice guy" Flemming, he never really won any great share of matches.

Flemming = a good honest captain.
Ponting = a brilliant captain

16 straight test win's and a couple of world cup's don't just happen when your team runs on auto pilot.

Better comparison would be Ricky Ponting and Ian Chappell. Very similar personalities and attitudes.

Well he seriously has another 5 years left in him the way he is playing...

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"They look like a team destined to win the world cup"......
Ian Chappel during Ind v SA in the World Cup 20-20

Of course, Ponting had the luxury of having a great team passed down to him. Fleming didn't.