While rankings and milestones have never been a source of motivation for me, I would rate today's achievement in leading Australia in what will be my 100th Test as the most special of my career.
To play one Test is a great thrill, but to know you can sustain your game over 10 years at a level that is very demanding makes today's honour something of which I'll always be proud.
And making it extra special is the fact my parents, Graeme and Lorraine, and my sister, Renee, will be among the crowd, along with a lot of good friends who have travelled from interstate.
Mum and Dad don't come from Launceston to see too many games. They were at my first Test and I don't recall them being at one outside Tasmania since, although they have been to a few one-day internationals in Melbourne.
So it's nice to know they will be here to share the moment, given the role they played in getting me to here.
For as long as I can remember, all I ever wanted to do was play cricket for Australia. Either that, or play football. To get a game for my AFL team, the Kangaroos, would have been nice.
But even when I was very young growing up in Mowbray, Dad had the feeling I was going to be a better cricketer.
I wasn't so sure, I loved playing football. Looking back, I think he and I probably made the right decision.
Right throughout school it was my ambition to be an international cricketer, and I left school in Launceston at 15 so that I could go straight to the cricket academy in Adelaide because I really wanted to give it a good crack.
When I was at the academy it seemed that lots of good things were being said about me, even though I tried not to pay too much attention to what they were. I was just a young kid who was living a dream because I loved cricket. Back then I would have hit as many balls as anybody simply because I was so absorbed in the game and wanted to improve myself by analysing other successful players.
I'm one of the lucky ones who has given up a lot to have a go at my dream. And to be able to succeed and play for Australia for as long as I have makes me really fortunate.
But there's always a small doubt until you reach this level and have some success over a long period of time. Even today, as I play in my 100th Test, I suspect there will be times during the match when a few doubts will creep in.
I have never considered myself to be a real student of the game's history.
But when I was young, I had to have every contemporary cricket book on the market. That included a big, glossy year book that first came out with World Series Cricket which I would get every Christmas, along with other cricket books and magazines.
I was not so much into the Bradman era or other historical books, I was more interested in the era that I was watching because I wanted to learn as much as I could about those players.
The two I used to love watching bat the most were Kim Hughes and David Boon who, of course, was a hero of mine because he was from Launceston.
Looking back our careers have been quite similar. He made his debut for Tasmania at a similar age. In my first game as a 17-year-old against South Australia in Adelaide, I was two weeks younger than Boonie was when he first played for Tassie 14 years earlier.
And we were selected in the Australian team at similar ages -- I was almost 21 and he was 23 -- and he ended up playing 107 Tests, so I've always thought he gave me a path to follow.
Over the decade that I have played for Australia, I believe there has been quite a big change within me.
That's just a part of growing up, and I was fairly young when I began playing international cricket and very young when I got into the Tasmanian team.
But my wife, Rianna, always gets asked about how much I've altered, particularly since I've had the captaincy. And she says she doesn't see one bit of change in me over the past five years.
I try to stay focused on what's important in the present, and once this morning's presentation from Cricket Australia of a specially framed baggy green cap is made to me in recognition of the milestone, it's going to be just like any other Test match.
And who knows how many I'll play after today? All I know is that this one will be pretty special.
- RICKY PONTING