I'll have to catch up with Sachin: Ponting

DUBAI: Hot on Sachin Tendulkar's heels with 31 tons under his belt, Australian skipper Ricky Ponting believes he has only recently been able to catch up with the Indian maestro.

The 31-year-old Ponting is just five centuries short of overhauling Tendulkar's world record rally of 35 Test hundreds, although the record isn't what drives him. "There are a lot of cricketers around the world who use their statistics to motivate themselves and set certain goals. I only think about going out there and performing at my best. If it leads me to a hundred, that is just one more against my name," he said.

"Sachin has still got a few more years left in the game. So I will have to catch up with him. It is only in the last couple of years that I have managed to reach reasonably close to him. I am only 31 years old and so I've got a few more years ahead of me to get a few more hundreds," he was quoted as saying in Gulf News on Friday.