Legendary South African umpire Marais Erasmus, who recently retired from international cricket umpiring, reminisced about his encounters with some of the toughest players during his esteemed career. Among them, former captains Ricky Ponting and Mahela Jayawardene stood out as particularly challenging to officiate.

Marais Erasmus speaks about toughest players

Marais Erasmus said,”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, renowned for his leadership and cricketing prowess, guided Australia to ODI World Cup victories in 2003 and 2007, while Jayawardene led Sri Lanka to the 2007 World Cup final. Their combined captaincy experience amounts to an impressive 510 matches, with 301 victories between them. Ponting holds the distinction of being the third-highest run-scorer in international cricket, amassing over 27,000 runs, while Jayawardene ranks fifth with almost 26,000 runs to his name.

“Thank god Jimmy (Anderson) was never captain” 

In addition to Ponting and Jayawardene, Erasmus also cited the formidable English pacers James Anderson and Stuart Broad as formidable adversaries on the field. “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.

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With a staggering tally of over 1,300 wickets between them, Anderson and Broad constitute the most successful bowling pair in Test cricket history. Despite Broad’s recent retirement with 604 Test scalps to his name, Anderson continues to dominate the longest format of the game. His recent achievement of surpassing the milestone of 700 Test wickets solidifies his status as one of the premier bowlers in cricket history, trailing only behind spin legends Shane Warne and Muttiah Muralitharan.