Australia’s greatest ODI player: SF 1

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.

Semi-final 1: Ricky Ponting v Brett Lee

VOTING IS NOW CLOSED. Ricky Ponting won 78% of the vote compared to 22% for Brett Lee, meaning Ponting has progressed to the final

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.

Brett Lee

ODI record

M: 221 | Wkts: 380 | Ave: 23.36 | SR: 29.4 | Econ: 4.76 | BBI: 5-22 | 5WI: 9

World Cup record

M: 17 | Wkts: 35 | Ave: 17.97 | SR: 23.5 | Econ: 4.57 | BBI: 5-42 | 5WI: 1

World Cup titles won: 1

Terrifyingly quick with the new ball and able to produce deadly reverse swing with the old, Lee was the ideal one-day bowler. Restricted to just 10 overs a game, the paceman was able to let the handbrake off and bowl fast and full wicket-taking deliveries with the new white ball – which he regularly swung more than the red ball in Test cricket – and then fire in perfect yorkers late in the innings. His 22 wickets were key to Australia’s 2003 Cup triumph and only injury denied him a chance at a second Cup win four years later.