A handful of English newspaper reporters filed into Ricky Ponting’s press conference with only one thing on their minds, July’s Ashes series.

When the inevitable question came, Ponting tried to keep his focus on the upcoming third Test against South Africa in Cape Town, rather than look ahead to what could be his career-defining moment as Test captain later this year.

Having led his young side to victory in the first two Tests of the three-match series against Australia’s nearest challengers for the No.1 ranking, Ponting preferred to pay tribute to his young side that included debutants Phillip Hughes, Marcus North and Ben Hilfenhaus.

“I haven’t even thought about the Ashes mate. It’s too far away yet,” he said at Durban’s Kingsmead ground on Tuesday.

“We have just been focusing on moulding this group of players here to be the best that they can be over the last couple of weeks and for the next two weeks that we’ve got ahead of us.

“What we have done couldn’t have gone any better. But to start thinking about the Ashes now is too far out of what we’re trying to achieve.

“We’ve got another Test match to play in a week’s time (March 19) and some one-dayers to play after that and once that’s out of the way we’ll start planning our next lot of Test cricket which will obviously be in England.”

But Ponting couldn’t resist an early attempt to unsettle the Andrew Strauss-led England side, pointing out how well the Australians had adapted to the South African pitches.

“From what we’ve seen here and what conditions we’ve had they are probably going to be reasonably similar to what we’ll come up against in England,” he said.

“So it goes to show that this group of players are more than capable of adapting themselves to whatever conditions they are confronted with.”

Australia’s secret weapon, uncapped leg-spinner Bryce McGain, has been kept on ice by selectors in the first two Tests but may finally get his chance to wear the baggy green in Cape Town.

A leading Australian bookmaker has listed Australia at odds of $1.83 to retain the Ashes with England at $2.85.

Later on Tuesday night, local television in Durban showed England unable to close out a series-equalling win in Trinidad, losing the series 1-0 to the lowly West Indies.

It was the first series victory for the Windies against any opponent since June 2004 when they defeated Bangladesh at home, in an indication of how well Australia are travelling and how poorly England are going at this stage of the Ashes build-up.

© AAP 2012

Enjoy sports? Enjoy a bargain? All Sports Online has your favourite sporting brands at up to 70% off. Online only, premium quality sporting goods and merchandise at discounted prices. Get a deal now.