Cricket: Ponting stakes it all on the Ashes

Australian captain Ricky Ponting. Photo / Getty Images

Australian captain Ricky Ponting long ago measured the price of failure in this Ashes series.

As early as July, he made it quite plain that defeat would likely mean the end of his leadership.

"I'd probably be looking for a new job if we lose again," Ponting said during the mid-year tour of England.

"It's as simple as that."

Not so simple is the task of rejuvenating an Australian team that has stagnated badly since the promise of a series victory in South Africa 18 months ago.

That result appeared to usher the arrival of Mitchell Johnson as a fearsome pace bowler and Phil Hughes as the all-action Australian equivalent of India's Virender Sehwag.

Yet both would lose their confidence, and in Hughes' case his place in the team, during the Ashes series that followed.

Despite home wins over a modest West Indies and a dysfunctional Pakistan, then a successful tour of a struggling New Zealand, the Australians have not been able to regain their authority.

A drawn series against Pakistan in England was testament to that, and while there was merit in running India close at home, there was also genuine concern at the team's inability to close out the Mohali Test - the latest instance of a growing habit.

"I like the look of when we were in India, we should have won the first Test and pushed the No.1 team right to the edge in their home conditions," Ponting said.

"I like the fact we're getting ourselves into winning positions.

"What I'm not that happy about is that we haven't been able to finish teams off.

"There's a lot of doom and gloom around at the moment about this team and Australian cricket.

"We all feel a lot more positive inside the dressing room than what it probably looks from the outside.

"The only way we can change how it looks is to start winning games.

"We are all very aware of that."

Ponting clings to the belief that his team is progressing, but it is a notion that both he and Cricket Australia will be challenged to relinquish if results do not fall favourably now.

Efforts to build a new group following the retirements of Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath, Adam Gilchrist et al have been stymied by selectorial muddles.

Australia's batting is old and fragile, the bowling inexperienced or inconsistent, and even the wicketkeeper's position has been shared around more often than at any stage since the late 1960s.

Selection chairman Andrew Hilditch and his panel have appeared caught between striving for youth and remaining faithful to older heads despite diminishing returns.

If the Ashes series begins badly, there may be a handful of tyros thrust onto cricket's most highly pressured stage.

For all that, however, there are reasons to hope.

In India Ponting batted better than he ever has on the subcontinent, to demonstrate he is still capable of dictating the course of a match.

Then there are the likes of Doug Bollinger and Ben Hilfenhaus, highly accomplished performers with the ball and well suited to cutting down a far from intimidating English batting line-up.

Shane Watson is another capable of great things with both bat and ball this summer.

First thrust into the Australian Test side as the man to emulate Andrew Flintoff, Watson may yet cast a shadow of the kind the Englishman did in 2005.

Should he and others exert that kind of influence, Ponting will be able to regain the Ashes - and keep his job.

- AAP