In 2005, his first ashes defeat, Ponting copped a rising ball in the cheek from Steve Harmison and was left with a lasting reminder of the English victory. Fast forward to 2009, his second ashes defeat, and Ponting's mouth was on the end of a fierce Matt Prior drive which left him with a bloodied lip that is unlikely to disappear any time soon.
Ponting can literally no longer turn the other cheek to any criticism, current or future, of the dual losses as he will be physically reminded of each loss.
There will no doubt be plenty of criticism and questions asked of Ponting's captaincy and also the Australian selectors. Questions such as Johnson's form, the lack of a quality spinner, Hussey's drastic drop of form over the past 20 test innings, Stuart Clarke's constant omissions, and Brett Lee's tour as a passenger will dominate the cricket airwaves with the Australian summer almost upon us and the West Indies and Pakistan ready to take advantage of any further instability. The little solace that Ponting can take from the series was his own form which whilst patchy was more than can be said for some of the other batsman in his team...stand up Mr Hussey.
With the arrival of a potentially second rate West Indian team for summer, Australia has a huge opportunity to rebuild the team and get selection right, but at the same point the West Indies may well be a huge banana peel for the established team members and selectors to slip and slide all over before crashing out of the national set up...
It will be very interesting to see how the ACB reacts to the above issues and tries to restore some confidence in the team to ensure solid turnstyle revenue from the upcoming summer. It will primarily need to deal with the issue of whether Ponting retains the 'C' next to his name or whether the 'Pup' is able to assume the position now.
It looks the summer could be a very interesting one, so stay tuned.
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