Ricky Ponting batsmen against India. Australia sealed the series win by defeating India in Perth, and in the fourth Test in Adelaide, Ponting and Clarke beat their own record, putting on 386 runs. The partnership was the fourth highest to that point in Australian Test cricket. Ponting's own score was 221. During the innings, he became only the third player and the first Australian (after Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid, who were playing in the same match) to pass 13,000 career Test runs. On Australia Day 2012 he was appointed as an Officer of the Order of Australia for services to cricket
Ricky Ponting Ponting slid out of the top ten Test batting rankings—dropping to 12th—as Australia faced the prospect of falling to third in the team rankings if they were not able to achieve victory in the final Test of the series. Matters got worse for Ponting, as former Australian fast-bowler Rodney Hogg voiced that he should be sacked as captain and replaced with New South Wales leader Simon Katich. He said the team had become a "boys club" and was not preparing adequately for the future. However, former Australian Test opening batsman Justin Langer labelled Hogg's comments as "rubbish", something that was