Don't get me wrong.
Come midnight tonight -- well, that's if I can be bothered to stay up into the night for a contest between the teams world-ranked, as Andy Zaltzman puts it, fourth [and] fifth. Out of, basically, 8 -- I'll be cheering Strauss & Co. on like your next cricket-obsessed English loon. (Incidentally, doesn't 'Strauss & Co.' sound like a gentlemen's outfitters from the late 19th century?)
And if there's one figure in world cricket I truly despise, it is Ricky 'sour grapes' Ponting, with his face like a constipated bulldog chewing a wasp wrapped in a cow-pat. (Actually, maybe that's what he has been chewing, all these years. Would explain a lot.)
The fact is, though, that Ricky Ponting, loath him or dislike him, is one of the greatest cricketers to walk the face of the earth. Yes, he whinges a fair bit, but he's second only to The Don in the batting rankings of a country that has produced a fair few good cricketers; ok, so he has a slight weakness on the legside, now that his flexibility and footwork aren't what they used to be, but he scored so many runs at under-13 level club cricket (507 in 7 innings, with an average of 507) that they had to change the rules governing when a batter should retire.* And he may not appear to be the most dazzling of Ozzie captains -- his propensity to bat when winning the toss is reaching near-pathological levels -- he is still, as David Boots argues, one of the most successful skippers ever.
I don't particularly want to see such greatness -- the word is overused, but not, I believe, in this case -- trashed because Punter happens to be only the third Australian captain in history to lose 3 Ashes series. Firstly, given the current ICC standings, does The Ashes really matter all that much? And secondly, it's not like Australia were trounced in either of the other two: in 2005, England were handed a giant stroke of luck when a cricket ball, for once, didn't do what Glenn McGrath wanted it to; in 2009, Australia were not so much beaten into submission as bored into it by a dogged 10/11 partnership.
So it is with mixed emotions that I predict an England series win this time around.** It will be great if we do inflict another defeat on a faltering long-term adversary; I just wish the losing captain had scored a few fewer than 12,250 Test runs.
*Sorry, you're relying on my memory for this, as I can't find a link to the article -- it was in one of the UK national broadsheets at the weekend, though.
**Given the success of my last prediction, in which I failed to even predict the number of players England would take on tour, let alone their names, I'd take this with a huge lump of salt.
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