During his illustrious career, former Australia skipper Ricky Ponting was tested against a number of great fast bowlers and he also scored plenty of runs against them.

See Also: Ricky Ponting shares his ever-lasting memory from Ashes cricket

Last week, Ponting confessed on Twitter that Andrew Flintoff's over against him in Ashes 2005 at Edgbaston was the best over he faced in his career. Not only Flintoff's pace was good, but he also used the reserve swing accurately.

Subsequently, cricket fans fired a lot of questions under Ponting’s tweet, asking him about the fastest spell he ever faced, his rivalry with India pacer Ishant Sharma, his toughest knock in Test cricket among others.

On Wednesday (April 15), Ponting finally revealed that Pakistan speedster Shoaib Akhtar’s spell during the 1999 Perth Test was the quickest he ever experienced.

“Got plenty of questions the other day after calling the Flintoff over the best I'd faced. This from @shoaib100mph was the fastest spell I'd ever faced and trust me Justin wasn't backing up too far at the other end,” he tweeted.

Despite that scary spell from Akhtar, Ricky Ponting went on to play an iconic knock of 197 at WACA to help his team thrash Pakistan by an innings and 20 runs. He was also adjudged Player-of-the-Match in that Test as Australia inflicted a 3-0 whitewash over the visitors.

Overall, Ponting represented Australia in 168 Tests, scoring 13,378 runs at an average of 51.85, including 41 tons and 62 half-centuries. He also aggregated 13,704 runs in ODIs from 375 games with 30 centuries.