A few players have defined an era quite like Ricky Ponting.

From the trademark bullshot to his razor sharp leadership, Ponting wasn't just part of a dominant era, he was its heartbeat, driving one of the most feared sides as sport has ever seen.

Ricky Ponting opens up about the journey and how a kid from Tazzy.

Brought his way onto the world stage.

Ricky Ponting is unfiltered.

When did you feel like.

Playing for Australia and dominating the opposition was what you were born to do?

It was probably before playing for It, might have been playing for Tazzy early on you knew what was happening.

First five years or six years, I played against waver at one hundred every inning, every time I played against him, so little things were happening that and I wasn't going to be happy with that.

I was only going to be happy sitting back and understanding that I made the most of the talent that I had.

Back to that, probably the first question you asked me today, what did your dad teacher was?

It was making sure you get every last little bit out of yourself, because it's like any career, right it's over quickly.

It happens happens fast, do you know, some of us rather to drag hours out a little bit longer.

And that's the thing that I'm probably much proud of in my career, is my longevity in the game because it's and it's the way that I judge pretty much all sportsmen is how long that they can maintain that really high level for And you know, to sit back one hundred and sixty eight test matches, you know, I pushed myself at the you know, the last couple of years of my career, probably shouldn't have played as many as I did, but felt like I'd got every last little bit out of myself by the time i'd finished.

I think as well, I knew, I knew I couldn't play the game the way that I'd played it before.

And when you realize you can't quite do something as well as you as you once did, then it's the fund's not there anymore.

Do you play a little longer to make sure you're handing the team over in the best shape it could be at your own detriment?

Yeah, yeah, exactly why and probably to you, I mean, it had never happened before where captain had stood down for the captaincy and not retired.

So I did that with all the right intentions of giving Michael Clark a good run for the next two years.

You know, I was lucky the teams that I come into to have those older, hard nosed Aussie players there that taught you the game the right way, and I wanted to make sure that that I was there to teach these new players the way that we go about it and what's expected.

And you know, for me as well, it was I actually just try to be too perfect the last two years because I wasn't the captain I was, I was still I was trying to set the best example that I was fitter, i was stronger, I was doing everything better than I've ever done before.

But because I was trying to be so perfect, I just forgot forgot how to score runs.

I was so worried about not making a mistake, so I was thinking about not making a mistake first and then scoring run second.

And I'd never done that when I was at my best, or even before, even probably before I played for Australia.

I just didn't think a baller could get me out.

I walked out with that thought that there's a one on one battle going on here.

You're up the ballers up there.

He's got his ball, I've got my bat.

Let's go and let's see wins.

And I didn't think that they could ever get me out.

So take me to your debut.

Twenty years of age, child prodigy finally gets his moment of the baggy green.

Steve Ware missed that game.

Stuart Law and I debut together.

Took about a day and a half for us to get a hit as well, because everyone at the top reckon.

I think Slats might have got two hundred and boone, you got a big hundred something like that, but eventually got a hit and got close to getting one hundred on debut and unfortunately wasn't to beat.

You said to me, that's as close to crying as you've ever got on a cricket pitch.

I mean, if you had given me ninety six before I walked out, I probably would have said, yeah, I'll take that.

I'll be pretty happy with it.

But when you get so close to and all the dreams and that that you've had about playing your first test and walking out in your green and making one hundred in your baggy green.

To get that close and then have it what felt ripped away.

I don't think I did well.

I don't think I did much wrong, but that's the point, right, So it's almost like that you're there and you're so close and then it's ripped away from it, from no real fold of your own.

Then, yeah, that was how I felt now, and then walking off and seeing mom and Dad and my grandmother there as well, and I think Dad was probably more upset and disappointed than I was, but it was it was a pretty pretty cool day.

You get told you're playing for Australia.

Who actually tells you you're walking off the ground and I was.

My mum actually told me as you're walking through the gate as I was walking off through the gate.

So we're playing has he playing a game against Sri Lanka Srilanka with a touring team and we're playing them in long Cesstein at the NTCA gram But this this was the week before the Perth Test match, so it was if I could get runs against Sri Lanka, then if there was a spot that was going to come up, then hopefully it was going to be mine.

So I think I got one hundred and forty odd or something not out and I happened to look up at one stage when I was batting it see Mum in the stand and rare thing.

Well, I told her she wasn't allowed to come a lot of the time.

I think early on in my career there must have been a moment where Mum turned up and then I got out, and from that moment I was like, you're not not there to come anymore.

So she was almost I just told her she was like a bit of a jinx thing.

And they didn't and they didn't come to too many games.

I've got one hundred and sixty eight tests, half a dozen times, maybe not even.

But so when I looked up and saw her, I thought, what's one I'm not out, so I've got I haven't She hasn't chinxed me just yet.

But literally she greet him at the gate and said, mate, you've just been you just got picked.

You're going to Perth.

You're in the test, Tam.

Were you aware at the time how young you were doing all of this?

I mean, you'd beaten Bernie for the youngest to play for Tasmania in the Shield.

Then you're twenty and being called up and it was for us as viewers, it was just what was going to happen.

We knew that was going to happen.

Yeah, I mean a lot of those things were happening.

I think I might have been the youngest of for Sheffield Shield Centurion or something as well and stuff like that.

But I was sort of accustomed to it because of what had happened as at thirteen and fourteen.

You're on fifteen with Rod Marsh just continually saying this kid's so good, just pick him now sort of stuff.

So I was aware that things were happening at a young age.

But I'll see, the most interesting thing with it now is that I've got a seventeen year old daughter.

Now it's impossible to think.

Okay, it's unfathomable.

I can't okay, it's it's crazy for me to think that she would be ready to go and.

Play Emmy, go and play state cricket yeh, or state netball.

Yeah, it's crazy to think.

I mean, I think the reason I was ready was because of my upbringing.

Where I was brought up, Like my cricket club was a pretty tough environment, like I but I had a lot of really good guys looking out for me, making sure that I was ready.

You know, so I've said forever, like when I was a thirteen year old playing a grade cricket from Obra, the moment that I walked on the field, it just felt like they were just looking out for me, doing everything they could to yea, And you wouldn't dare say a word like if your opposition player.

You wouldn't dare say a word to me with the guys that I was playing, because it would get out of hand pretty quickly.

So I was well looked after, and I was I was ready on the back of hanging out with men for well ten years.

I'd been in men cricket Chaine rooms for ten years by the time I debuted for Tassi.

Know, I was a product of a environment seven year old eight year old boy.

They had a BMX bike that would ride to every a grade game every Saturday morning wherever it was around Long System.

So if it was an hour and a half of my BMX to get there, I was there just to turn up and hang around with the agros.

Yeah, so I'd be outside the dressing rooms before they got there, and then the dressing room but open, I'd go and find a little spot in the corner.

I'd sit back and just listen to just learn.

Took it all in, didn't say boo if they were fielding the moment that they walked out, then I'd go through everyone's bags and pick up their bats and gloves and everything, and be there until midnight with them.

At the end of the day, and one of them would chuck my bike in the back of their car and drive me home.

You and I and Cane Corns having a chat the other day and we got a cricket lesson in a lift.

Explain your I don't even know what you caught the Ponting triangle.

And I was at a four piece of paper.

Basically, batting for me was all about scoring runs as quickly as I could and knock it out like I didn't.

I didn't have any joy of being a defensive minded player or not scoring runs quickly.

I wanted to do what I could do to score runs quickly put pressure back on the bowler.

I'd take my guard.

I'd look down on the wicket and basically say, okay, if he can land that ball inside that a four piece of paper there, I know that I haven't got a shot I can't play shot to that ball.

It's a defensive shot or it's a leave if he's good enough to get it there.

But I trained myself well enough that with this imaginary square or rectangle, if the bowler got just on the short side of that, then I felt I could pull it.

And then if I could play a pool shot to that ball, then the bowler's response was going to be, well, I can't bowl there.

I've got a bowl of fraction fuller now.

And then I had him on the front foot and I could hit him back down the ground.

So I was I was trying to eliminate the margin for error that bowlers had on length and train myself to do it.

If you ever watch any highlights on me about you'll know you see me look down and then I looked straight at the picture just up there, and I was looking at the square, looking at the square.

That's where the square is.

And I'd always look at that, and then I'd lock into the bowler and then let's go, And how what age were you looking at the square?

I reckon as a cricket academy thing.

I reckon because even back then we're in the indoor nets.

As a fifteen year old and I'm facing McGrath block of Wilson.

Although some of the quickest bowlers in Australia on ASTA like fast, bouncy pitchres indoors and I'm like, well, I've got to find a way to survive here otherwise.

But I had to do that my whole life, right, Like as a thirteen year old playing a grade in the NTCA we I was brought up on hard wickets there as well, so I'm facing we had four or five of the best and quickest bowlers in the state played at my bob so as a kid on Astro against those the ball was always bouncing up around here and I reckon everything that you sort of look at me technique wise, with being on the front foot early having my bat up high was because I was finding a way to combat the bounce of the ball all the time.

As a kid at Lord's You're bleeding.

There's not an Englishman even looking at you.

Good.

I wouldn't expect any other way.

Haytous got hit.

I'd been cut, you know.

We had our backs to the wall in the series.

From that moment on, things were completely different.

Mood stands up and says, get rid of the curfew, get rid of the drinking pan.

How true is it?

You've just dropped the world cut.

It was something along those lines.

The countdown is on to what's being called the Grand Fine.

I left Test cricket.

The hidest ticket in London got even higher.

His body line was resurrected, the most anticipated action series of decades an Australia on the ropes.

It's hard to think there'll ever be a better Ashes series than No.

Five.

I know it wasn't the result that you wanted.

That it was the best of cricket in so many ways.

I just think that that five series came at the right time for world cricket as.

Well, almost rejuvened.

The tone was set in England at Lord's you're bleeding.

There's not an Englishman even looking at you.

Good, you knew right we're on.

I wouldn't expect any other way.

What are they come and look at me?

If I wouldn't have, I wouldn't have run running into them.

That's historically they probably would have.

They might have been they might have been nicer than the and the only one you could tell was harmy.

Steve Harmson, the guy that hit me Bold one hundred and fifty k is now big intimidating guy.

You could see he wanted to come down, but he was looking at his mates and he's most like you know worn, He's like, no, no, we're not playing, We're not playing that way.

So I mean that hatous got hit on the head, job, hit on the arm.

I'd been cut, I reckon cat it, Scott hit when he came out, all in the first of hour, hour and a half of that first Test match, and then it was like, right, she's on here, let's see how we go for the next next couple of months.

The moment that sort of will be recalled a lot is flint Off just kneeling down with Brett.

So after all of it, it's like, Sport's good.

Yeah.

I mean, that's probably one of the most iconic bashes moments of all time, and it's an image that will last and stand the test of time.

That whole five tour, we'd tried to change things up to accommodate certain individuals in the team.

Even with the way that we trained, we just we just got away from the really old fashioned, hard nosed, old school way of getting prepared and what we did as groups and this little things that were happening that we were trying to do for all the right reasons, but when you're in the middle of a NASH series and things aren't going perfectly, it can it's hard.

I mean an ASHES series away anyways hard because they try and you know, the media try and pull you apart and do everything they can to upset that touring team and that will happen in Australia this year our media to do the same thing and it wasn't until I sort halfway through it was like, well, this is not working.

They've come to play, they're a good side, they're ready for us, but to try and change it in the middle of an aashal series is really difficult.

So for me it was my greatest learning as a as a captain was you know, I was still a young captain.

Then it was my first ASHES series away as captain.

I have been in the job for eighten months.

The moment that I identified any tiny little thing that I felt wasn't right around the team, then I got on it and addressed it straight away.

On that tour there were little things that had happened that I just expected guys it's like just you grown up, just go and sort it out amongst yourselves.

And I didn't pay enough attention then, and before we knew it, we were you know, we had our backs to the wall in the series.

So from that moment on things were completely different.

Your World Cup record has three wins couples captain ninety nine.

You're gone until you work.

We were gone up until a point where we'd had a loss against I think Pakistan maybe at Headingly.

So we get to this point where we're just not playing well and we have this meeting in like literally we sat around the outside of the dressing room in Headingley.

Who's coach, Jeff Marsha was the coach.

He says radio, if anyone's got any issue with anything that we're doing the way that we're goinge about it.

We're playing our cricket.

This we're this is all gloves off and we're just going out and getting it all done.

Until everything's out in the air.

Mood stands up and says, get rid of the curfew, get rid of the drinking pan.

I reckon the tournam would have turned around for us.

We do that, didn't lose another game.

We had a tie.

We had a tie, which is good enough to get us into the final.

How true is it you've just dropped the World Cup.

I was batting with him at the time.

I was batting with Tiger at the time.

That was word for work.

I don't think it was.

No, it was something along those lines, but it wasn't.

It wasn't those exact words.

And actually, can I tell you warning story.

I'm not sure if I've told you this story before.

So we're getting our team meeting done going into that game against South Africa at Headingley.

So team meetings, you're working through all of their players, right, You're going down everyone Herschel gives this Johnty Roads that Jack kallis Sean Pollock, this you get any pick him to pieces.

Anyway, the meeting's finished, and when he says, hey, before you go, I've been watching this team really closely.

If anyone hits a cat catch to Herschel gibbs today, don't walk.

He's been He's been catching him and like throwing him really nonchalantly at don't walk sure enough in the game, target chips it straight to him, catches it, tries to flick it out quickly fell out the side of his hand.

Warning told us actually said before the game that has gone to happen.

I've never heard that.

And that's where the you've just dropped the World Cup thing.

So all the promise school cricket I didn't get out once.

Just after that I actually got my first ever back contract.

That's where the great man gave me my nickname Punter.

When Morning had ball in his hand in a Test match, it didn't matter where it was that the rest of us were just on his stage shitting back and joined the show.

To be totally be honest, I probably enjoyed playing footy more.

How old were you and you knew you were well ahead of the pack.

I mean they had to change the rules for you in Taskey.

I was only think about this the other day.

So all of yes, all of the year five, all of year six, so all the premier school cricket, I didn't get out once.

So I was I wasn't dismissed for two whole years, and I reckon I was thinking about it as well when I got to high school.

I think I only got out once in high school, which was a I got run out in a Grand final in must have been year ten, I don't think.

I don't think I've been out at school in any game.

So there's no bowler in Tasmania in schoolboy cricket.

That said, I took ponting.

Not in a school game, maybe in an under thirteen club game early doors, but not in school cricket.

No, So he didn't get out for a number of years.

So they said thirty's it.

You're going to have to retire at thirty.

So how did you eke out the innings?

Yeah?

Yeah, so grade five was thirty eight was bowling one week, thirty eight was batting the next.

Right, So I opened the batting in grade five and bat at all thirty hours of every game.

So and obviously made enough runs along the way.

And then we come back to the start of a year six and the coaches like, oh, there's the rules are different this year.

You can only you've got to retire at thirty.

So I'm thinking more.

I love batting that much.

I'm not going to hit any boundaries.

I'm just going to pick him up in singles.

I'll face the first five balls of every other, get a single off the last one, then I'll make sure i'm back on back on strike for the next one, so some of my teammates might have been that happy with me.

But yeah, so obviously the coach of the team would do the scoring as he's umpiring out there as well, so I'd check with him, may I Now I hadn't.

When I got to twenty nine, I made sure I hit a boundary or six then, because that made me thirty three or thirty five rather than just thirty.

So as an eleven year old, you're playing the under thirteens, and what was the competition you were playing in?

Yeah, NTCA Under thirteen week basically, so.

The best of everywhere turns out.

How did you five days go?

I got fifty odd on the Monday in the first game, disappointing.

I was disappointed, actually I know it now years on.

And then got one hundred not out in every the next four games after that, So out for fifty and then not dismissed the game and got one hundred and four consecutive one day games.

So that was the under thirteens, and then not long after there's the under sixteens.

But you're still eleven.

Yep, that was a bit of a step up.

I must have I must have men bolling at you.

Yeah I did, yeah, yeah, but I found it, found a way.

So I got out of those five games, got two hundreds in the under sixteen week the next week, and just after that.

I actually got my first ever back contract just after that.

So how did you get good?

Was there a wall that you used to practice against?

Was there an innate hunger?

I think there was that.

I think there was that hunger.

Therefore it I loved the game.

You know, I idolized my uncle.

So my uncle, Greg Campbell played played a National Series, so he when I was sort of at that influential sort of age, I guess he was doing everything that I wanted to do.

He was playing a grade for Mowbray, be playing state cricket for Tassy, and then he got picked on the eighty nine ashes to it.

Was it that that made me good?

Maybe having someone to chase and someone to follow.

Probably Bernie was the peak of his powers then as well, So someone else from lon Seston sort of forging a path for someone like me to be able to follow.

I think was probably a bit of inspiration there as well.

But I was just the same as every other kid.

I just played in the backyard.

But then anyone that we could round up for a neighborhood game in someone's backyard, then I was the first one there.

The time in Adelaide was an eye open for you.

You left home with pair of jeans and a T shirt, another nickel to your name.

No bank account, no nothing.

I only go back back then it was literally a cricket bag, a pair of track pants, a hoodie.

You said, jeans.

I'm not sure I had genes.

To be honest, I didn't have a belt, and I didn't have a no collar, didn't have it.

No, I didn't have a going out shirt.

And WARNING made sure that when he came over, the first thing I did was going to go and get a going out sht.

But I didn't need anything.

You know, we were living in the Director's Hotel in Gooja Street.

You probably know we were living in there.

Breakfast, lunch, and dinner was put on for us.

Our laundry was taken care of.

But our monthly allowance was forty dollars a month, so that wasn't going to go far.

So yeah, I was trying to think of ways that I could turn that forty into a little bit more.

And I liked having a bet on the Greyhounds for the my family upbringing in the way that it was.

So that's where the great Man gave me my nickname Hunter Warning Warn.

He did it back then, and so what was that?

That was ninety one, probably somewhere there, and I think I've been called my nickname more since than my actual name, so it stuck.

So Warning was about the place, but had not yet become a rock star.

You jumped in his.

I know he became a he was already a rockstar turning up in his own ninety one.

He just got his first create Australia.

He had a crick Australia contract, because I remember he left it on the front of the passenger seat of the car, and I know it.

So the first time I got into his car, the first thing I saw was a Cricket Australia contract.

But he also left the dollar amount figure on the top page rather than be in the bottom page.

So straight away as I'm going in to sit down, I could look at it and see that's the sort of money these guys are on.

So you couldn't imagine that number at that time, forty dollars a month.

I'd never seen that, never even heard of that sort of money, and it wasn't big money back then.

It was his first ever contract, but it had a couple of extra zeros on the end of it than any sort of amount of money that I'd ever heard or even thought about before.

When did you realize he might become the best league spinner at the game scene.

I don't think anyone knew until after he'd played a dozen Test matches.

Probably everyone knows about his Test match debut and that didn't really go the way that he probably wanted it to.

Was it one for two hundred, so it wasn't on debut.

He trained with us and I batted a lot against him, so it was always on between him and I in the indoor nets, and all the coaches would sit back and watch us to go at it.

He was just so competitive, like you could just tell there was something different about him.

And there's never been anybody better with that, with that art or that craft, and probably no one that's been able to almost work out batters and set up batters better than Shane warn that certainly that I played with anywhere.

That when Warney had ball in his hand in a Test match, didn't matter where it was that the rest of us were just on his stage, shitting back and joined the show.

That's how I felt.

I mean, I'd have a few words to him here and there about fields and stuff.

It was like, just get out of his way and let him, let him go about his business, and all of us just sit back and enjoy it for what it was.

That's how I felt.

Before you went to Adelaide, was there a fork in the road where you had to decide between football and cricket.

I remember you telling me a story that your father said to you, don't get picked in the state team.

Yeah, that's exactly what happened.

Yeah, So we had we used to have our state carnivals, right, so you had teams from the north, the Northeast, the northwest, so the berniear Demport where they would play together, team from the North of which I was captain of under sixteens, and then two teams from Hobart.

So you'd have the statewide carnival.

And I had a good carnival.

I got picked in that state squad and then I think we had about a month in between, and so we trained really hard getting ready for the big camp in Hobart for the state team to be finalized, and I thought I was a pretty good chance of getting picked in it.

And I had my bag and getting into the car to get down to Hobart, and as I was going up the driveway, he said, what don't, whatever you do, don't get picked in that team.

And I didn't.

I didn't deliberately not get picked.

And I've never actually sat down and asked Dad what happened because I didn't get picked.

But it didn't very well with me, the fact that I didn't get picked, And I'm not sure what happened there on form should you have been picked?

I thought I had a reasonable amount of talent to get into that side.

Yeah he's a whilie elbow, aren't he.

Oh well it was either that or someone else from cricket.

So do not pick this kid.

Yeah, just leave, let him go and let him.

But I mean to this, I actually, to me totally honest, I probably enjoyed playing footy more than cricket.

I mean I was.

It was as a very young age.

My last game was as a fifteen or sixteen year old and I broke my elbow really badly my last ever game.

But still dream about playing for.

I'd love playing for.

I love I love the team aspect and the bit of physicality and stuff that you could having a game of footy, which you can't always express it properly on the cricket field.

Of this.

His Test career began at the Whacker seventeen years earlier.

Now Ricky ponting into the arena, but his two hundred and eighty seventh and final Test sitting.

Put him miss I miss the competition of being locked in a battle against the baller one on one.

That's what I missed the most, like and well really it's the only thing I miss out of the game.

I'm coaching now, so I'm back in a cricket dressing room, which is I'm just meant to be there.

I'm meant to be in a cricket.

Cricket dressing room, there's no that's my happy place.

So coaching now brings some of that competition back into my life and it's a really strange feeling phenomenon, whatever you want to call it.

But as an athlete or as a well a cricket it's an athlete, but as a cricketer.

Every day from the age of about twelve or thirteen, I was competing against somebody.

I was competing against myself in the gym.

I was looking after my diet.

That's you know, it's a competitive thing to do.

I'm in the nets facing ballers, or I'm playing a game.

I'm competing that whole time, and then you retire and there's not one minute of that competition in your life anymore.

It's it's just all stops.

So the only way that I could replace it somewhere near you playing was actually coach and I need to do that.

I need to have that competition, you know.

Six PM News came on and it said that he was the leading run scorer and at eight months he got a terrible.

MRSA infection, arter and operation and was back in.

ICUs even to the point they said, oh he's hit his head or he's had a stroke.

The mission is to help.

Children with cancer and their families.

Is it true you only met because your grandfather was an obsessive cricketer, Rihanna, Yeah.

My grandfather and my brother.

So we came to Melbourne for the Boxing.

Day Test twenty four years ago, twenty five years ago, and we were at the same restaurant after the day one on Boxing Day, Yeah.

And your brother sees a few members of the team and Zero's in on Ricky, Yes photo just.

The two of us.

That's just me and and Andy Bikele.

We were only two single guys in the team at the time.

Everyone's the normally got their family down for Christmas and Boxing Day.

So we're out by ourselves having a nice little romantic dinner together, me and Bick and then and then yeah, Darren comes over around.

I follows him over to sort of drag him away and yeah, the rest is his Darren sit down introduce me.

Yeah, Wise, I said, I think she would have found it way over at some stage anyway, I.

Think not true.

So of the Australian eleven, how many players would you have known it?

I knew Shane Warn so not a quick obsessive.

I remember when he retired in Perth, the news that you know, six PM news came on and it said that he was the leading run scorer and I was.

Like, oh my goshould you know that?

It's amazing?

Well done?

I think it came up on the bottom of the screen thirteen thousand tests runs and went did you make thirteen thousand runs?

Then the one day runs come up thirteen and a half thousand one day runs as well.

You's got I said, you should be part of you.

You're actually pretty You're pretty good at this game, were't you?

Was it a surprise to you that he was arguably the best batsman the game scene?

Yes, I know a lot more now though my son has taught me a lot, and now that he's coaching, I have a lot of opinions, which he's like, what are you talking about?

But I feel like I.

Know a lot more.

We're about to speak a lot about the ponding foundation.

You understand only too well what it's like when you've got a sick kid.

We're speaking about Fletch, and when he was really young, he had a run in that had you guys terrified.

We had two run ins.

One at six weeks he had meningitis and we're in ICU for a few weeks.

And then again at eight months he got a terrible MRSA infection arch and.

Operation and was back in ICU.

So even though we only spent a few weeks at a time, it definitely changed who we are and our whole experience, and I think that's made.

Us work extra hard.

For the foundation.

What we went through was hell, but what they're going through is something that we could never imagine.

There's some pretty hairy times with the fletch, particularly with the meningitis.

And then I think there was a time when he was unconscious and they thought he must have knocked his head.

That wasn't the case at all.

When we first took him in, he was completely unresponsive.

You could you could pro him and broke him anywhere.

No response even to the point they said, oh, he's hit his head or he's had a stroke, that's where that's where it was, and we see him back, you know, for what seemed like an eternity for those couple of days with no real answers coming from anywhere, until they did every possible test that they could with lumber punctures and different MRIs and all these things they did, and they eventually found what they felt was a tiny little infection in his brain, meningitis infection in his brain, and that was that was the outcome that we were given.

So that was that was that part of it that was pretty scary.

And then the other infection that pretty much took over his body, shut his body down, was at eight months close to hernie rap.

Yeah, basically that.

Yeah, and picked up a antibiotic resistant staff infection.

Basically that.

I think his kidneys at one stage were operating about eight percent, so they basically had to sedate him.

They had they had to put him, put him to sleep, and glue his eyes shut.

And we were sharing, we were staying in at the hospital.

We were sharing nights on and off, and yeah, there are a few nights there where things got to the point where it was I thought it was done.

So in two thousand and eight, the Ponding Foundation is established.

The mission is to.

Help children with cancer and their families.

You start playing cricket in the backyard and Tazzy get good at it, Ye, his lady, You're able to raise millions of dollars for families that are fighting cancer.

It's a nice circle, which is what I said, Like when I was ever questioned about why I'm doing it, it was like, why wouldn't I do it?

I can't.

I can do it.

I've got the time, I've got enough corporate support, if you like.

Back then, we were putting on, you know, a thousand people functions that I'd make sure that all the cricket boys turned up to him.

We had some pretty crazy auction items and indoor net set up that they all the punters in that turned up could have a bat and a bowl against warning and whatever else.

So that's where it all started, but it's a lot different to where it started now and we're very proud to be able to give back to Tasmania the way that we are.

Having met Phil Kerns at a business lunch and he'd organized he was working for the Children's Cancer Institute of Australia at the time, and he said, what are you doing charity wise?

And I said, well, I sign a bat and send it off or assigned a shirt and send it off, but I'm not actually aligned in any way to anyone.

He said, well, what about if I organized for you and Rianna to go and have look and meet some of these kids and families in a couple of days time at the Royal Children's in Sydney.

So we did it and the first thing that we're confronted with was a six month old baby boy that had just been diagnosed with leukemia in the arms of his father.

They were from the country, both had to sort of give up their jobs moving to town be with him and just you know, and then we went from ward to ward and saw the chemo patients and you know, a fourteen year old boy actually was had just finished his chemo treatment for the day.

You know, fully glass the ceiling so you can look in and whatever else and obviously not allowed it all that in the room because a fully sterile environment.

So I just got up closer to the glass and he must have been a cricketer because he sort of sat up and recognized me, a big smile on his face, sat up in his bed and tried to get out of the bed to get closer to the glass, and just vomited all over himself and wasn't physically strong enough to be able to do it.

So this is what we're with, This is what we're seeing our first ever experience with it.

So literally we spent a couple of hours there talking to the families.

We walked out, sat down with tears in our eyes and said, right, this is what we're doing.

And from that moment, I've just had so many different people say why are you doing it?

Like, why are you doing it?

You're about to become the Australian cricket captain you're gonna have no time, You're going to have all these personal sponsorship things to do.

And I said, well, I'm doing it because I can and I want to, and I want to make a difference and make these parents and kids' lives as good as I can.

I'm not going to be able to change their worlds completely, but if I can make if we can make some sort of impact on what they're going through, then that's what we're going to do.

So here we are.

What are we six seventeen years laterenteen years later?

He and so where does the money go?

The beauty of the Planting Foundation is it helps families and those affect it.

Explain what you can do with half a million dollars.

Tasmania is unlike the mainland because the treatments down there aren't offered to the children's They have to travel and we've met so many founilies over the year that have been torn apart, not just by what the children's going through, but having to separate and come to the mainland.

So our priority is.

Just to keep those kids in Tazi and have the MRI machines we need, being able to enroll them in clinical trials and we really feel like the money that we're raising is going to make a difference.

Well done on everything I've done.

You're a mail and there's not many better husband and wife combinations working together.

It's a joy to see you both.

Thank you, Thanks Hanne.