Australia’s greatest ODI player: Round 2

With the 11th edition of the men’s World Cup to get underway later this month, we want to know – who is Australia’s greatest ever one-day player?

Australia are the most successful one-day side in history, winning more than 60 per cent of their 932 matches and lifting the World Cup trophy a record five times, including three consecutive wins between 1999 and 2007.

Of the 228 men to have played ODI cricket for Australia, we’ve narrowed it down to the best-ever 16 to help decide the greatest of them all. Such is Australia’s long history of one-day talent, star players like Allan Border, David Warner and Michael Clarke haven’t made the cut in our top 16, leaving only the best of the best to fight it out for the title of Australia’s ODI GOAT.

Players have been rated on their performances across their one-day careers, with performances on the biggest stage of a World Cup weighted more heavily.

Fans can have their say in a series of head-to-head polls over the next week, with votes to be tallied across cricket.com.au, the CA Live app as well as Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.

Match 9: Ricky Ponting v Mike Hussey

VOTING IS NOW CLOSED. Ricky Ponting won 80% of the vote compared to 20% for Mike Hussey, meaning Ponting has progressed to the semi-finals

Ricky Ponting

ODI record

M: 375 | Runs: 13704 | Ave: 42.03 | SR: 80.39 | 100s: 30 | 50s: 82 | HS: 164

World Cup record

M: 46 | Runs: 1743 | Ave: 45.86 | SR: 79.95 | 100s: 5 | 50s: 6 | HS: 140*

World Cup titles won: 3

Three World Cup wins, two as skipper, 4000 more ODI runs than any other Australian – do we need to say anything more about Ricky Thomas Ponting? For more than 15 years, Ponting held down the No.3 spot in an Australian side that enjoyed an unprecedented level of success, highlighted by the unbeaten World Cup campaigns he skippered in 2003 and 2007. In a career full of great moments, his stunning assault on India’s bowlers in Johannesburg in 2003, on no less a stage than a World Cup final, is an innings that’s difficult to forget.

Mike Hussey

ODI record

M: 185 | Runs: 5442 | Ave: 48.15 | SR: 87.16 | 100s: 3 | 50s: 39 | HS: 109*

World Cup record

M: 15 | Runs: 156 | Ave: 19.50 | SR: 82.10 | 100s: 0 | 50s: 1 | HS: 54

World Cup titles won: 1

The axing of Michael Bevan 15 years ago after a decade of dominance would have hurt Australian cricket more than it did if it wasn’t for the emergence of Mike Hussey. From the moment he debuted in 2004, Hussey slotted into the No.6 or No.7 spot made famous by Bevan and took it upon himself be the man to either ice a big total with some lusty blows or steer his side to victory with a cool head in a tense run chase. And he did so with aplomb for more than eight years, although a dominant top order in 2007 and a hamstring injury in 2011 denied him the chance to fully fire at a World Cup.