Ricky Ponting Shaun Young. It also included five future Test batsmen: Matthew Hayden, Matthew Elliott, Martin Love, Justin Langer and Stuart Law. Despite not batting as well as he "would have liked", Ponting returned to Australia with the fourth highest batting average—48.73. Tasmania toured Zimbabwe for five games ahead of the 1995–96 Sheffield Shield. Ponting struggled, aggregating 99 runs at a modest 24.75. By the end of October, he had signed a contract with the Australian Cricket Board, along with 22 other Australian cricketers. He opened the batting with Boon in Tasmania's first match of the Sheffield Shield season, scoring 20 and
Ricky Ponting Ponting would be more effective against England's pace-oriented bowling attack. However, Ponting struggled in the first three Tests, scoring 47 runs at 11.75, and Lehmann regained his spot for the last two matches. He had played 22 Tests by the end of 1998, with 1,209 runs at an average of 36.63. Ponting was a permanent fixture in the ODI team throughout this period, and scored 322 runs at 46.00 during the Carlton & United (CUB series) series of 1998–99. During the CUB series, Ponting was involved in a fight outside a pub in Kings Cross, New South Wales, and earned