"Ricky Ponting and Mahela Jayawardene tried to intimidate us" - Marais Erasmus on hardest players to deal with as umpire

Legendary South African umpire Marais Erasmus has recalled former captains Ricky Ponting and Mahela Jayawardene as being the hardest to deal with during his illustrious officiating career.

The 60-year-old recently announced his retirement from umpiring in international cricket after the second and final Test between Australia and New Zealand in March. Erasmus was part of the ICC's elite panel, having begun his umpiring career in a South Africa-Australia T20I clash in 2006.

When asked about the toughest players he dealt with during his career, Erasmus told Telegraph Cricket in an interview:

"It’s a challenging job but it’s also a very rewarding job. New Zealand were always very, very respectful. Ricky Ponting and Mahela Jayawardene tried to intimidate us. Sometimes it was subtle and sometimes not subtle. There are moments where you think 'why am I doing this stuff' but there's so many more positive moments and benefits and I've never actually seen it as work."

Ponting and Jayawardene are two of the most accomplished captains in cricket history. The former led Australia to ODI World Cup glory twice in 2003 and 2007, while the latter captained Sri Lanka during their run to the 2007 World Cup final.

The duo have a combined 510 matches of experience as captains with 301 wins. Ponting is also the third all-time leading run-scorer in international cricket with over 27,000 runs, while Jayawardene is fifth with almost 26,000 runs.

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"Thank god Jimmy (Anderson) was never captain" - Marais Erasmus

Marais Erasmus also named the legendary English pacers James Anderson and Stuart Broad among the toughest to officiate as an umpire.

With over 1,300 wickets between them, the pace duo is the most successful bowling pair in Test history.

"Thank god Jimmy (Anderson) was never captain but no, no Jimmy was hard work. You knew that he was not a character that you should, you know, try and sweet talk or whatever. I normally just gave him quite abrupt, short answers," said Erasmus.

"Because if you got into a debate with him it was going to be never-ending, especially when you spoke to Jimmy about the running on the wicket. He would argue it. I just said ‘you’re on the danger zone, try and get off. If you don’t I will give you a warning. It is not going to be a debate.’ Stuart Broad was challenging as well sometimes but he and Jimmy are fiery fast bowlers and that’s the way it should be," he added.

While Broad retired as the fifth-highest wicket-taker in Tests with 604 scalps, Anderson continues to dominate world cricket in the longest format.

The 41-year-old recently became only the third bowler to 700 Test wickets in the series against India, trailing only the spin twins, Shane Warne and Muttiah Muralidaran.