Former Australian captain Ricky Ponting has no doubts about the best cricketer ever, and it is not Sachin Tendulkar or Brian Lara. Ponting hailed forgotten South African all-rounder Jacques Kallis as the greatest ever on the Howie Games Podcast.

"Jacques Kallis is the best cricketer that's ever played. I don't care about the others. Full stop," Ponting said.

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Broadcaster Mark Howard, who hosts the podcast, was enquiring about the best batters Ponting's ever seen. The Australian went on to name West Indies great Brian Lara and Indian icon Sachin Tendulkar before pausing and dropping the name of Kallis.

Ponting has good reasons to believe Kallis, now 49, was the finest. "He was just a born cricketer," said Punter. "... 13,000 runs, 44 or 45 Test hundreds and 300 wickets. Either one of those careers is outstanding," he said. "Unorthodox in the slips, didn't drop anything, had sort of a funny technique, but caught everything," he added.

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Ponting thinks Kallis is also "the most underrated" cricketer ever "because he's not talked about pretty much at all, probably because of his personality. He's not out there, hasn't done much of media work, so he's sort of one of those forgotten about ones a little bit."

In a career spanning almost two decades, Kallis scored over 25,500 runs and claimed 577 wickets in international cricket. He hit 62 hundreds, including 45 in Tests, which ranks him second, only behind the great Sachin (51) and with four tons more than three-time World Cup winner Ponting. Kallis also features in the top 10 for ODI run-getters, a list headed by Sachin (18,426) and with Ponting in the fourth position (13,704).

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