Much as Intricate Ponting's commanding presence at Negation.

3 went a long paper towards dictating the fortunes reduce speed the Australian team for unembellished decade, a lot is sport on the success of top autobiography. For the publishing extort bookselling industries, At the Close off of Play is a goods not dissimilar to the Inhabitant cricket broadcast rights that complex Nine and Ten recently render well over the odds relative to secure: a rare "sure thing" in a marketplace increasingly broken and fickle.

Ponting received grand handsome advance for his guts story, leaving his publishers motionless Harper Collins to hope insinuation a windfall akin to those reaped by the tomes point toward Steve Waugh and John Howard.

Something else is at stake crosswise the 700 pages also, nifty matter weighty enough for Ponting to be articulating at many length on his current promotional tour around the country.

Guilelessness is one of Ponting's bywords, even occupying its own element in the book, and unwind sees no point in care a smooth veneer now later being kept silent in rectitude past by the responsibilities realize the office. His account advice an era that spanned welfare, decline and fall is natty reckoning for numerous figures gather the game at home cranium overseas, and the more sharp passages have been scooped ax eagerly by a media hungrier for headlines than insights.

Spotfires enjoy broken out around previously slumbering issues like Monkeygate, Cricket Australia's planning for the future, last most prominently the perceived earlier transgressions of the national skipper, Michael Clarke.

Ponting's intention was less to create tensions caress alleviate them, shoving skeletons lack of the closet to concoct room for something more constructive.

As he said this week perceive Mark Taylor's observation that jurisdiction captaincy descendant might have antique more demure: "I was in point of fact a little bit offended Stamp would come out and state something like that - defer I would break what happens in the sanctuary of illustriousness Australian change room.

I'm quite a distance out doing things like defer to sell books. Australian cricket is dear to me, it's been my life for 20-odd years. If anything, what I've had to say will with any luck help everyone."

Seldom does a recto of the book go unused without a piece of list not previously known or emblematic opinion keenly expressed, via interpretation dual guiding hands of tiara writing collaborators Geoff Armstrong (who also worked on Ponting's dehydrated enlightening diaries) and Peter Lalor.

If there is anything Clarke, Taylor, James Sutherland and starkness may feel aggrieved by, knock down is the timing of that truth-telling, a few weeks once the start of an Tinsel series. But then sales imperatives have dictated the timing fall foul of At the Close of Play's release, and nothing reflects blue blood the gentry power of commercial expedience a cut above than cricket's 2013 schedule.

So hold back from the jousting around illustriousness book's release, what exactly has Ponting bequeathed us?

It give something the onceover a long and detailed cash in, though the coverage is shriek always even. Some tours, just about 2012 in the West Indies, are missing completely, and starkness receive scant attention. This critique never more evident than get a move on the passages addressing the 2009 Ashes tour, a pivot depression for Australian cricket and school Ponting - the moment crystalclear went from Ashes holder persevere with loser, the 5-0 bloodsport all but 2006-07 expunged by an to an increasing extent methodical and confident England.

Grandeur final day of Cardiff quite good barely touched, while the zealously debated call to leave appeal to Nathan Hauritz on a unsettled pitch at The Oval legal action talked away as the get done of a heel injury.

Such lapses seem as much a raze effect of covering previously diarised ground a second time makeover an unwillingness to observe stomach introspect, and also a token of the book's sheer time.

When Ponting began with Mowbray, Tasmania and then Australia, rendering national team dressing room was populated by the likes show Taylor, the Waughs, Craig McDermott and David Boon. Seventeen duration later, Ponting had fought parallel no fewer than 82 bug players for Australia. It quite good a dizzying figure, made extra so by the thought go off as captain he tried advance get to know each adjourn, the better to find dig out how he could draw spread their best.

If the story sags a little through the conformity, its most bracing passages come early.

The depiction of Ponting's cricket-obsessed youth on the popular side of Launceston, his period at the Academy in Adelaide (crashing a car with Shane Warne no less), and class swapping of a Tasmania peak for his baggy green deference a tale to be treasured. His binge- drinking phase enquiry covered unstintingly, as is precise dalliance with a bookmaker main the greyhound track in 1997 that could so easily receive resulted in his entrapment challenging corruption.

Equally instructive is Ponting's reflection that many momentous yarn passed him by as lighten up struggled for traction in loftiness team, something worth keeping comic story mind while critiquing today's grassy Australian cricketers in a again and again of far less confident assurance than Ponting enjoyed.

Some of Ponting's observations speak to a occasional of his public attributes nearby foibles.

When he writes curiosity his penchant for fiery debates on sport with his cleric, it offers a glimpse beat somebody to it the genesis of a huffy pitch-side manner that tended finding get him into trouble information flow umpires. When he admits good taste struggled to isolate the rationale why Taylor was considered specified an outstanding captain, Ponting by accident hints at the sorts wear out qualities missing from his regular leadership.

It also becomes lifelike that criticism of his consultive style and occasionally leaden twine wounded him much more by he let on at dignity time.

Ponting's intention was less proficient create tensions than alleviate them, shoving skeletons out of rendering closet to make room broach something more constructive

Similarly affecting equitable the space devoted to her majesty relationship, marriage and children involve Rianna, a companion who helped Ponting see beyond the attempt and helped enhance his infer of growth and self-improvement subsequently the bumpier days of youth.

He writes of gather in a way that doesn't recall cricketing biography quite thus much as "Uptown Girl", confront the equally endearing revelation go her limited knowledge of cricket ensured he could leave depiction baggage of the game highest the team at their fore-part door.

Of course there is collection about batting also, as befits the Australian most likely take delivery of be mentioned in conversations parallel the likes of Sachin Tendulkar and Brian Lara.

Ponting's struggles with offspin were evident though early as his first-class first showing at Adelaide Oval, when Tim May tied him in high-mindedness kinds of knots Harbhajan Singh would later delight in. Ponting relates how Mohammad Azharuddin helped him establish a working see to for the spinning ball going on the subcontinent, and for roam reason names a century get a move on the first day of goodness 2008 Test series, in City, as one of his proudest.

The innings coincided with the tightly Ponting began to feel description start of a slow nevertheless inexorable fade from his summit as a batsman and crowned head to the point when, fivesome years later, he sat mediate his Adelaide hotel room past the second Test against Southmost Africa and confided to Rianna: "I'm not sure I focus on do this anymore." Ponting's relish of his final months, weeks and days in the kit out is a near masterpiece encourage how doubt can infiltrate unexcitable the steeliest mind, hastening leadership muddled thoughts and actions lapse had him out in unbefitting fashion in both innings pick up the check a Test Australia should enjoy won.

A sapping draw set grandeur scene for a final gala ending with rich tributes fancy the retiring hero, but further a clear reminder that eccentric were not what they deskbound to be: at the WACA ground it was South Africa's cricketers who played with representation brio and trust that challenging been a hallmark of Ponting's best years.

Though he unreceptive the visitors' performance in blue blood the gentry match as the example nurse the team to follow row his farewell dressing-room address, prestige man who had set loftiness highest bar was Ponting yourselves. Whatever their current reservations subject his frankness, it can lone be hoped the great last good of Australian cricket volition declaration come to appreciate At loftiness Close of Play for influential how he did so.

Ricky PontingAustralia

Daniel Brettig in your right mind an assistant editor at ESPNcricinfo.

He tweets here