Flintoff will always regard this as the greatest moment in his international career

Former England all-rounder Andrew Flintoff has revealed that dismissing ex-Australian skipper Ricky Ponting during the 2005 Ashes series was the “best wicket of my Test career”.

Flintoff congratulated Ponting on an incredible career, spanning 17 years, and noted that he was an outstanding batsman and a very tenacious competitor.

“A great batsman, a good bloke and a very tough competitor,” The Guardian quoted Flintoff as saying. “I remember in my last Test, at The Oval [in 2009], he was fielding at silly point and he took a bit of a blow to the mouth, but he just spat the blood out and carried on. That was typical of Ricky.”

During that same Test match, Flintoff ended up running Ponting out with a direct hit from wide mid-on, which all but ended Ponting’s hopes of retaining the Ashes.

“I didn’t get many run-outs, so that one gets remembered,” Flintoff added. “But I’d say Ricky was the best wicket of my Test career back in the 2005 Ashes series at Edgbaston.”

“He was the second top run-scorer of all time, wasn’t he, which says a lot? But that doesn’t tell you what a tough competitor he was. You always knew you were in a battle with Ricky, but he’s a good bloke as well – everybody wanted to hate him over here because he was the Australia captain, but I always found him a top man.”