LEEDS: Australia captain Ricky Ponting became only the second batsman after India's Sachin Tendulkar to score 12,000 Test runs when he reached the landmark against Pakistan here on Thursday.
Ponting's edged four to third man off left-arm quick Mohammad Aamer on the second day of the second Test at Headingley gave him the 40 runs he needed to reach the landmark in what was his 247th innings in his 146th Test.
Tendulkar also reached the 12,000 mark in the same number of innings.
Ponting is one of the outstanding batsmen of his generation and has scored 39 Test hundreds, second only to Tendulkar's record mark of 47.
But the India star made his Test debut aged 16 in 1990 - five years before the 35-year-old Ponting's debut - and has played 21 more matches at this level than the Australia batting great.
Tendulkar, 37 is the only batsman in Test history to have scored more than 13,000 runs. His tally stands at 13,539 runs from 273 innings in 167 matches with 47 hundreds, including a best of 248 not out, at an average of 55.48
