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Australia captain Ricky Ponting swings out at the ball. AP Photo/Matt Dunham
Ricky Ponting is back in England and is a man on a mission. He is still smarting from the Ashes loss in 2009, and since then, he has been hell bent on redemption. The Australian team has been relentless in its quest for the Holy Grail, the undisputed Number One cricketing nation.
India is nominally number one in Tests and England are the reigning Twenty20 Champions.
Australia, post Ashes, has taken on all comers in all formats and been bested only once in a final. Once again, the nemesis was England, and that too was against the odds: in the Twenty20 World Cup final.
Ponting was not there, but he would take it personally.
Since July 2009, Australia has beaten England 6-1 in ODI’s; won the Champions Trophy in South Africa, going through undefeated. Come from behind to beat India in India in a seven match one day series; won seven out of 8 tests against the West Indies, Pakistan and New Zealand; beat both Pakistan and West indies in the ODIs; and reached the final of the Twenty20.
Ponting has not been involved in Twenty20 for a year and his focus is solely on Tests and ODI’s.
He would want to win every game in the next twelve months.
Readers of the Roar will be aware of my unstinting endorsement of Ponting as the best man to lead Australia and I continue to support his captaincy. I am convinced history will judge him more kindly than has been the case in the recent past.
Australia play five ODI’s against England, two Twenty20’s against Pakistan, and then two Tests against Pakistan in July/August. I will not dwell on the Pakistan Tests here as it is still some weeks away.
Pakistan may well have undergone more costume changes by then. It is a constantly changing soapie.
Ponting’s men start with a one day International against Ireland on Thursday and then have a warm-up game against Middlesex. So Ponting will lock horns with Strauss before the one dayers.
Ponting will not want to lose to England ever again.
The man from Mowbray is hurting and has been waiting for the opportunity to inflict pain on the enemy.
Mitchell Johnson and Brad Haddin are missing from the England games and have been replaced by Tim Paine and Josh Hazelwood. Hazelwood is being earmarked for bigger things and will figure prominently in the years ahead.
Bollinger and Harris are improving and will torment the England batting.
Dirk Nannes is not in the squad, but is playing in England, as is David Hussey. And should an epidemic strike, Simon Katich is also there plying his industrious and concentrated trade on the County circuit.
Steve Smith is the new blonde bomber in the Aussie squad and has been playing for a month in England. He is superb in the field and is capable of anything with the bat and the ball.
Australia no longer consider England easybeats in any format and will be bursting to assert their bragging rights over a team that continues to grow and surprise.
In Kieswetter, Pietersen and Eoin Morgan, England have three world class one day practioners. Graeme Swann is combative and is rightly ranked as the most improved spinner in world cricket.
And we may not have seen the best of this ugly duckling yet.
Watson, Ponting, Clarke and Hussey give the Australian batting the edge, and in the bowling, Anderson, Broad and Swann are at least the equal of Australia on paper. But as we all know the game is not played on paper.
It is played between the ears, and if Ponting can suppress the steam coming out of there, then Australia will win 3-2.
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