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[uknsaunders]

Hussain didn't have to go but did to make room for Strauss. Vaughan packed it in soon after giving up the captaincy.

[will5210]

I think he'll drop to 5 or 6 in tests (with Kawaja at 3) & score some runs, but probably not in the quantity as he did at his peak.

[tim2000s]

Hussain didn't have to go but did to make room for Strauss. Vaughan packed it in soon after giving up the captaincy.

Yes, but Ponting doesn't have the same injury problems that Vaughan had.

[Buzz]

Also watching Vaughan clinging on was pretty undignified - batting at Yorkshire, making no runs - but still hitting the ball really well in the nets!!!

Ponting will flourish without the hassle of captaincy.

[uknsaunders]

It's all guesswork tbh. Some guys (Gooch/Tendulkar) enjoy their best spells as a batsman, while others (Collingwood/Dravid?) start on the slippery slope at 35/36. Without some major reinvention of Gooch proportions, I suspect Ponting is the latter.

[SempreSami]

Flintoff?

He won us thr Ashes before retiring, I don't think that is a rubbish way to depart

Had he retired completely straight after the Ashes rather than chase the Twenty20 dollar post-operation, perhaps.

I thought his announcement on the last day of the County Championship took the attention away from what was a cracking finale.

And his current post-cricket work involves sharing a studio with James Corden. Ouch.

[keysersolze]

Dont you guys worry Ricky is going to get a south african passport or find a long lost Enlish relative and pop up playing for England very soon!!! OOOps sorry that was Pieterson, Strauss, Trott lol well done ricky good career for a guy who was a servant to the game bloody hope he does not do a tendulkar and sudenly stat hitting the big runs or a lot of people aka selectors at Cricket Australia will have egg on their faces.

[Coach]

the Australians in the past have never kept ex captains in and around the squad for long...

[roco]

But they had talent to call upon before can't see too many pushing ponting at the min

[Johng]

As a Captain, one of Australia's worst.

As a batsman, in full flight as good as any. Will be good to see what he does with the weight is off his shoulders.

[langer17]

I have to admit that I am an unabashed Ponting fan.

In this case, I think he was pushed. Still he is a class batsman and was, for a period of time, the luckiest captain in cricket history - then once Langer, Hayden, Gilchrest, Warne, McGrath, Lee retired his limitations were exposed.
Realistically, i would have looked a good captain captaining that lot

I hope he gets another few years as a batsman because in full flow he is brilliant to watch.

The problem was that while all these legends were still playing, no young talent was getting ago and developing. All of those players pretty much left at the same time, so they had all these new players with minimal experience come into the side.

Even  now at first class level, you have all these older blokes who are never going to play for Australia, but they keep playing because they get a fair bit of money, and why would they give that up. So instead of young talent getting a go and developing then maybe playing for Australia at around 23 or 24 years of age, they are only coming into  a first class side at  26 or 27 and by the time they develop and lay a platform, they are a bit older and are less likely to ever play for Australia.

[Opener]

Never liked Ponting as a captain but as a batsman its another story. I modeled my batting after him when I was a kid.