And Clarke is without doubt the only player in Australia that should NOT be considered for the job. He does not have the temperament.

Ian Chappell always said the Australian way is to pick the best team of 11, and then select the captain. With Ponting and Clarke not considered for the role, who is left from the other 9? Of the current team it could only be Katich or Haddin. I would go with Katich, he has matured immensely in recent times, he is hard boiled. Doesn’t matter the age, replace him when he is finished with someone else from within the next team in a few years time. It does not have to be a dynasty.

Fascinatingly, the West’s finest military minds have discovered that the key to fostering a killer instinct in one’s troops is to inculcate a “whatever” frame of mind – that is, to make the process of killing seem mundane and ordinary, as if one was merely pushing buttons on one’s Playstation. This, apparently, is much, much more successful than the alternative approach of encouraging one’s troops to feel active hatred towards one’s opponents.

One generalises at one’s peril, but I suspect that the military approach might have something to teach our sporting folk.

Re playing for your country, I have a theory. I have watched at close hand a succession of NZ teams fail at rugby World Cups. I am convinced that a major reason for this is because they feel they are playing for every person in their country. If you think about it, that is an unbearable pressure. On the other hand, I had an epiphany in 2003 when Australia were in the West Indies. Darren Lehmann scored his maiden test century, and when he did so, Ponting, the batsman at the other end (also a century maker), exploded with joy, and hugged Boof as if he was his bride. Firstly this made me realise that even though Steve Waugh had the ‘c’ next to his name, Ponting was already the ‘spiritual’ leader of the team. But even more so it made me realise that these guys were doing it primarily for themselves. To see the look on Ponting’s face, he could hardly have been happier if he had broken a cherished record himself – he was simply overjoyed that his mate Boof had finally made it in test cricket. He was not overjoyed for his country, but simply for his team. What motivated that group of players to do so well was simply that they wanted to do it for themselves. Yes, they also wanted to do it for their country, but above all it was for themselves. I am convinced that this is the key to success in team sport.

To give another example, ‘dulce et decorum est pro patria mori’ sounds beautiful but it was a bloodbath of a failure in WW1.

Ponting should let go of some power. He already doesnt play T20 which is good, now it’s time to give up the ODI team as well. Yes he is scoring runs and wants to be part of the 2011 World Cup etc, but if he stops thinking about himself for a moment he will realise that he is probably not the best man for the job in the long term, let Clarke take the ODI reigns now and watch the team propser in 2011, 2015 and beyond. This leaves Ponting as test skipper, this summer they should have no problems rolling over the Pakis and the Windies (which resemble a Club 5ths team sometimes)..but if they do somehow draw one series, then wowza, watch out Punter, his days will be up. He probably has 1 more slip up free year to go I would think.

In terms of the makeup of the squad it’s pretty simple, Mr Cricket seeya later. Hughes back in, stick him there because he is one of the long term and has proven he can do it at international level, consistency with the bat will come, let him iron out his technical flaws and he has the attacking game to smash attacks worldwide. Drop Watson down to four, in between Punter and Clarke, he has a solid technique and has batted middle order for his various state teams before and averages 45 at first class level with 13 tons and 27 50′s. North at 6 as the all rounder, Haddin in at 7. Johnson must be kept as he is the only world class bowler, give Brett Lee this summer to say goodbye as a test player, Bollinger, Siddle and Hilfy will compete for 2 spots, and just keep playing Hauritz as a spinner until a better option comes along or by some miracle he improves.

Stuart Clark, M Hussey thanks for your time and contributions but you are surplus to requirements starting this summer. The depth is there in Australian cricket, it just chooses to be ignored by the selectors. D Hussey, Hodge, Cam White, Nannes, Klinger, Rogers, Voges, Mcdonald, they can all play some part in one of the 3 Australian teams, instead we just see the same players rotating through the 3 squads. No other country does this, but somehow the Aussies think it should work. It doesnt, as I said many months ago on this website when Australia got bundled out of the T20 and I voiced my concern over the English summer ahead, everyone poo poohed my comments and said ‘ Don’t worry mate, its the Ashes were more worried about, who cares about this hit and giggle T20′…well that didn’t work out too well for you did it gents?

As for the home-away issue, it is not merely the crowds, of course. I suspect that each team has specific technical problems which devil them away from home: in the case of England this takes the form of a terrible lack of patience and application on the part of its batsmen on slow pitches (as Michael Vaughan observed last week, England are always competitive on 350 pitches but seldom competitive on 550 pitches); for Australia, it takes the form of terrible difficulties against old-fashioned swing bowling; for Sri Lanka and India and Pakistan, they simply are not used to pitches with pace and bounce.

So conditions are probably the key factor. But the Ashes is unique in the extent to which it generates outside interest and distractions. Brett Lee wrote, during his first Ashes tour in 2001, that he felt “the entire nation of England was against him”. I suspect that this is a common feeling on the part of both team’s players when on tour, and that it is doubly magnified by the limitations and pressures of enduring hotel life for months on end in a (nominally) foreign land.

I suspect that nowadays both teams feel like they are trying to uphold their nation’s honour. This has probably always been the case for the Aussies (quite naturally seeking to put one over the Mother Country) but it is now also the case even for England. Such is the lamentable importance which the modern, sport-obsessed generation (wholly ignorant of war) invests in a ball game. It is no coincidence, I suspect, that so many fine cricketers of recent vintage – Trescothick, Johnson, Martyn, Slater, Harmison, Gillespie – have capitulated during the unique pressure of an Ashes series rather than any other.

In response to our exchange, I thought more about 2005 vs 2009 Ashes last night. Really they were completely different series. In 2005 Australia won the first test but after that they had barely any periods of dominance. They were well outplayed at Edgbaston and Trent Bridge, but due to final-day jitters by England, these both ended up very narrow wins (by 2 runs and 3 wickets respectively). At Old Trafford England were on top for most of the match, but Australia clung on for a draw. The Oval was more even, but England were never in any danger after Warne at slip dropped his mate KP on day 5. So although a lot of the scores were close, there’s no question England were the better side, and the series statistics squarely reflected this.

Although the overall result in 2009 was the same (2-1 to England), it was a very different series. Australia won considerably more sessions than England (cf. 2005), and “won” virtually all the statistics for the series, in many cases quite heavily.

Of the recent SL-Pak series (in SL), cricinfo reported that Pak won 12 out of 19 sessions in the first 2 tests, yet SL won them both (the third test was even more strongly dominated by Pak, but ended in a draw). Earlier this year in the WI, Eng were the better side and won a lot more sessions, but lost the series 0-1 due to one absolutely disastrous session at the end of the first test (all out for 53 I think it was). And now a similar pattern in Ashes 2009.

Home and away is the common factor in the above three tales, but is the cause the crowds, as you, VC, suggest? Without question it’s a factor, but I find it hard to believe it’s anything like the full story. Bring in the shrinks!

Indeed, a nugget, and I swear it took me only 30 seconds to work out the relevance (I spent the first 29 thinking “What on Earth does this have to do with the present cricket issue?”). Now you just have to find an example of a FR to BR conversion that has occurred less than 59 years ago … rugby has changed somewhat since then! Or has it?

Home advantage seems to be becoming more and more important in the Ashes. I suspect that this has something to do with the increasingly shrill and unsportsmanlike behaviour of the local population in both countries. I know that the England players were absolutely stunned by the ferocity of the locals in 2006/7 and, regrettably, the Aussies seem equally uncomfortable in the Mother Country.

I make Australia heavy favourites for 2010/11. Yours is a harsh land for the uninitiated.

I don’t want to take up space on your cricket thread (I just don’t understand the game) but I have a little nugget of information from you.

John Kendall-Carpenter won his first two (Oxford) Blues as a prop in 1948 and 1949 and was capped by his country in the front-row in between. After three more caps at prop in 1950 he stepped back to the No 8 position for the 1950 Calcutta Cup match and captained Oxford from the back of the scrum in the Varsity Match later the same year. Thereafter he was England’s regular No 8 for four more seasons, winning the last of his 23 caps in 1954. All told he played five times as prop and 18 as No 8.

I’m not sure about dumping Ponting, but Greg I think you’ve highlighted a bigger problem: there probably isn’t a lot of options available to make mass changes even if we wanted to, and that’s where the blueprint must be wiped (and I think it was Fred McGee who had this idea early this week).

We might see the likes of Hughes, Ferguson, and even Manou again, but apart from the spin merry-go-round and some tinkering with the quicks, is there much scope for change?

If you want the facts read this assessment http://www.theroar.com.au/2009/08/30/ponting-for-the-record/

Ponting’s record of 134 wins to 39 losses in ODI – some 72.83% of matches won. Far exceeds that of Taylor, Border or Waugh.

really VC – I’ve often felt that by the end of that series England were growing as a side … and if there was another 5 test series straight after – they’d have won more convincingly … of the Australains Warne really was the only one showing some fight

Notwithstanding the above, with my earlier comment I do NOT “mean that it proves the 2005 defeat to be some kind of aberration.” Rather, all I mean is that if Australia played to its potential in 2005, then as a team stacked with all-time greats, it had to win. But with the exception of Warne, those greats played well short of their potential in 2005, and the series was (not undeservedly) lost. No question, sport is about what happens, not what happens if everyone plays to their potential.

Incidentally, comments about Adelaide in 2006-7 seem to me to involve a rewriting a history. Yes, England had a horrible choke on day 5, but that only cost them a draw, not a win. I don’t really see any evidence that a draw in Adelaide could have transformed the series. Apart from having Australia 4/50 in Melbourne (but even this was after a very poor England score), I don’t remember any other promising positions for England in the rest of the series.

You may have committed the error here of over-cooking the ‘voice of reason’.

I sometimes say to my wife (no, often), you might have something very sensible to say, but you then spoil it by going on & on about it!

Of course, such straight-forwardness doesn’t win me any accolades!

Ricky Ponting is still the best credentialled candidate for captain. Losing two Ashes series in England needs to be seen in context. Just as it was with Billy Murdoch all those years ago. Or was it John Scott (all before my time, of course).

All said in the context that “I love your work”.

However, I take issue with the dismissal of Bollinger’s credentials. I feel this bowler has been a victim of his lefthandedness, for there’s been a certain southpaw always standing in his way.

Bollinger is better than Johnson. Has been for a few years. But Punter backed the latter by pushing for him and taking him on all manner of one-day tours while Bollinger prospered at Shield level; a feat Johnson has yet to manage.

Johnson improved dramatically through continued exposure at the highest level, as borne out in his efforts in India and results against South Africa. He’s now come back to the field and retains a very flawed bowling action; the very same one which saw him spray deliveries all over the shop at home against NZ.

Johnson is a decent number eight who bowls quickly and with stamina, but a reliable spearhead I’m not convinced he is.

I’m not sure I agree with you about 2006-7 – not, at any rate, if you mean that it proves the 2005 defeat to be some kind of aberration. The losses in personnel were debilitating enough – Vaughan, Trescothick, S Jones – but even the players who did ship out to Australia were pale shadows of their 2005 selves – notably, Harmison (form, lack of pluck) and Flintoff (injury, lack of professionalism). Add into the mix bad luck, fate – how might the series have been different if England hadn’t imploded at Adelaide? – and England’s appalling lack of morale, and the turnaround seems rather easily explicable.

That’s not to say that 2005 Australian team was not better than the 2005 England team. I think it was probably better to the extent that it would have won the series six and a half times out of ten. But the cracks exposed in the technique and character of the Australians in 2005 were by no means illusory.

As this makes clear, I am not arguing for the guillotine to be brought out after every single failure, so I am aware of not degenerating into the situation of Italian politics (notwithstanding the relative longevity of their current Lothario!).

Incidentally, the 2006-7 Ashes were good fun, but in a way they were sad in that they really emphasized how badly Australia had failed in 2005. I mean, both teams were largely the same, and the relatively small changes in personnel and conditions were not nearly enough to explain such a massive turnaround in results. In an odd way Ponting’s failure in 2005 was greater than his failure in 2009, but it’s now after the second one that he must go (I find) … because it’s the second time.

Yes, you lost. To the Poms. Deal with it.

Australia – appalling winners, even worse losers. It’s a national character flaw.

I admire – and, like Odysseus, am almost tempted by – your siren call. But do you not think that such emphatic affirmations of one’s commitment to excellence might be rather troublesome in an era when excellence can by no means be guaranteed? If every Australian captain is to be defenstrated the moment he loses the Ashes, then there will be more Baggy Green captains in the next ten years than Prime Ministers of Italy. And the results, I imagine, would be similarly unimpressive.

Having said this, I did write in my article “It would be folly to guarantee that appointing Clarke will see our fortunes [in test cricket] improve.”

My argument reallly is one of statement of intent. As a commenter elsewhere expressed it (in response to my argument), “I have a tendency to agree – if we are to applaud mediocrity we are to become the English Cricket team.”