10 batsmen who are ahead of Virat Kohli in the ICC All-Time Test rankings list

(4) Ricky Ponting (Australia): 942

Ricky Ponting at his peak was simply untouchable.

Ricky Ponting scored 13379 runs in Test cricket at an average of 51.8. He is the second highest run scorer in test history, and only Kallis and Tendulkar have scored more hundreds than Ponting's 41. Despite the aforementioned, the numbers do not tell the story of how utterly dominant Ricky Ponting was at his absolute best. Ponting's desire to win is unmatched in cricket's history, and it led him to places only a very few batsmen have ever been.

Between March 2002 and November 2006, Ponting played 52 tests and scored 6000 runs at an average of 75. It included 23 hundreds (more than half of his total). During this period Ponting was the numero uno batsman for most of the time. When England arrived Down Under for the Ashes in 2006, there was a lot of hope amongst England supporters but Ponting quashed it early. Ponting 196 and 60* in the first test at Brisbane, and followed it up with 142 and 49 at Adelaide, Ponting's average crossed 60 for the first time at Adelaide, and he remains the only batsman in Test history to average above 60 after playing 100 tests.

Ponting started the 2006 Ashes with 931 points to his name. His exploits at Brisbane took him to 940, and after Adelaide, he had 942 rating points. There was no reason to believe that Ponting would not better it, but sadly it was the beginning of the end for him. At that point, it was the highest rating achieved by any batsmen in the past 50+ years and is still good enough to earn Ricky Ponting the fourth spot in the all-time rankings list.