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| June 7, 2005 | Tuesday | Rabi-us-Sani 29, 1426 |
Ponting not losing sleep over possible Ashes loss
ASHFORD (England), June 6: Ricky Ponting has claimed he is not losing any sleep about becoming the first Australian captain to lose an Ashes series for almost two decades.
Alan Border was skipper when Australia last lost to England in 1986-87 since when Border himself, Mark Taylor and Steve Waugh have presided over eight straight wins over their oldest enemy.
Ponting took over from Waugh when the latter retired in January 2004 and when he landed in England on Sunday to prepare for this year’s renewal he insisted he was not fretting about being the one to lose Australia’s proud record.
Ponting said: “I’m not looking at it as being the first to lose them (the Ashes), I’m looking at being another Australian captain to retain the Ashes.
“It comes back to us being here and preparing well. There is no more pressure on this team than in any other series. In every series we have played for the last ten years we have been favorites and it might be the same this time. It is not something we have thought about - we are here to play the best possible cricket.”
England’s resurgence in form in the last two years, under the captaincy of Michael Vaughan, has seen them move up to second place in the ICC World Rankings. In the hugely unlikely event of them beating Australia 5-0 in the Ashes series they will take over at the top of the table.
But several of the Australians have played county cricket in England and Shane Warne, who will just be playing in the Test matches, is currently captaining Hampshire who are top of the English County Championship.
Ponting added: “From the outside looking in it seems that they deserve to be number two in the world. They have beaten everyone they have come up against in the last couple of years and that indicates they have improved quite a lot. That makes it exciting for us.
“I was asked about this series 12 months ago (when Ponting had a short spell at Somerset) and that shows how big it is.
“Shane (Warne) has been doing his own homework and from reading in the papers things seem to be going pretty well which is good for him and good for us.
“Mike Hussey, Simon Katich and Shane have been over here playing, it is good for them to get some cricket under their belts and it’s good for us to have a bit more knowledge.”
Two new faces the Australians will face this summer are Andrew Strauss and Andrew Flintoff.
Strauss has had a dream start to his career scoring five centuries in his first year of Test cricket whilst Flintoff has never played in Ashes Test because of a mixture of poor form and injuries.
His form in the last two years, however, sees him come into the Ashes series — that starts at Lord’s on July 21 — as one of the world’s premier all-rounders.
“I’ve not played against Strauss,” said Ponting. “But all our team enjoy the challenge of playing against very good opposition. Strauss has done very well at the top of the order and every side in the world would like to have an all-rounder of Flintoff’s class. We have Adam Gilchrist as our all-rounder but most sides would like to have Flintoff.”
Australia will play England in an international Twenty20 game in Southampton on 13 June, then take part in a triangular one-day series with the hosts and Bangladesh. After three further one-dayers against England the Ashes series will eventually get under way.—AFP
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