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Is Ponting Australia's greatest ever Test captain?

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Cricket-obsessed Andrew Hughes compares Ponting as a skipper and batsmen to other great Aussie Test captains

For all their big talk, Sri Lanka tackled the First Test in Brisbane with all the ferocity of a rabbit wandering into the tiger enclosure. Winning the toss, they timidly inserted the Australians and then spent the best part of five days trying to hang on in the teeth of some relentlessly accurate and occasionally hostile bowling. Sangakkara and Malinga are likely to be back for the Second Test at Hobart on Friday. Whether their fighting spirit will also return remains to be seen. Although this recommendation will win no prizes for originality, at the current odds, there is no option but to back the Aussies at [1.45]

For Tasmanian Ricky Ponting, this match is a triumphal homecoming. Last time he was here for a Test match, it was in the wake of the post mortem over the Ashes loss, he was a captain under scrutiny, indeed a captain still finding his feet, despite being in the position for over a year. This time things are different. In fact, the stats on the Cricinfo (www.cricinfo.com) site show that Ricky Ponting is the most successful Australian captain since the war, with an astonishing Test match win percentage of 77.77, better than Alan Border, Mark Taylor or Steve Waugh and for good measure, a batting average of 59.27, marking him out as the best batsman of the lot.

So you have to ask the question, why was he ever under pressure? Well, the fact that he was inheriting perhaps the greatest side ever to play the game meant that he was always going to struggle to take the credit for their success. On top of that, losing the Ashes was a devastating blow to Australian cricket pride and it was Ponting that bore the brunt of it. He was said to be tactically poor and lacking in man management skills. His demeanour at press conferences was often surly and defensive and his leadership was frequently contrasted with the Mark Taylor's tactical nous and cheerful eloquence and the quiet, steely authority with which Steve Waugh took the best team in the world and made them ruthless.

But that Ashes series has proved the making of Ponting the captain. Till that point, he had captained with the brakes on, restraining his instincts, deferring to other senior players such as Warne and McGrath, sticking to a set of rigid tactics. It was as though he had been given the title deeds to the house but had been told he couldn't rearrange the furniture. But the humiliation of being the first Australian captain since 1987 to lose a series to England seemed to galvanise him. Signs of the real Ponting were there all that summer, notably in the Trent Bridge Test when he exploded over the issue of substitute fielders. He blew up again in March 2006 at the New Wanderers when his side had lost narrowly in that epic one-day match in which the South Africans successfully chased down 434 with a ball to spare. After the match, he tore into his players. Bit by bit, it became more and more Ricky Ponting's team.

Of his immediate predecessors, Ponting most resembles Alan Border, a street fighter, at his best with his back against the wall. There are also parallels with the tasks confronting them. Border was a reluctant captain who picked up the pieces of a shattered team, held them together through the schism over the rebel tour of 1985 and eventually laid the foundations of their dominance. Without Warne and McGrath, without Langer and perhaps soon without Hayden, Ponting has his own challenge, to shepherd in a new era and maintain their total dominance during this period of transition. Then perhaps he will get the credit he deserves to match the statistical evidence.

That evidence also shows up another fascinating aspect of his captaincy. Though Border and Waugh saw their averages remain unchanged after assuming captaincy and Taylor saw his drop, Ponting's has soared. His average pre captaincy was already an impressive 55.97. Since getting the top job he has averaged an astonishing 65.50. Currently the best batsman in the world, the odds on his finishing as top batsman in this series look a little generous and I would back him at [3.0]

But who do you reckon is the best Australian captain of the modern era? Is Ponting a better leader than Border? Or do you rate Ian Chappell or even Don Bradman as the superior skipper? I'd be interested to hear your views.

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