mvaughan

I was pretty sad to hear the news that Ricky Ponting has been dropped from Australia's ODI team for the rest of the Commonwealth Bank series. We're talking about one of the all-time greats here. One of the most prolific batsmen to have played the game, one of the most successful captains ever in all formats . Let's not forget he captained Australia to two World Cups and won another just as a player. And that's before we go into all of his achievements as a Test captain. To be told that you're no longer up to it isn't the way his ODI career should have been ended. But maybe the selectors realised that calling time on his own career was never going to happen and that they had to push him. 'Punter' has called a press conference tomorrow and my gut instinct is that it will mean he'll ...

There are plenty of ingredients you need to win a World Cup and one of them is a good, strong, experienced captain. I always think that this roles is even more important in limited-overs matches than Test cricket. After all, bowling changes, batting line-ups, fielding placements and when to take powerplays are often the difference between success and failure. The captain who gets most of them right often ends up on the winning side. So who's the real deal? I've already said India are my pick to win this tournament and the fact that MS Dhoni is the man in charge was part of my reasoning for that. It obviously helps that he's got a wonderful set of players at his disposal and a great balance to his side that always gives him plenty of options whether batting or bowling. But where Dhoni...

I don't really like being asked to compare this England side with that of other eras. The quality of the opposition changes, the players change, pitches change, the role of technology in the game changes and even the way the game is played is somewhat different. Who would have thought ten or fifteen years ago we'd have Test matches where for large parts of the game batsmen are scoring at [b]four an over[/b] for example? My side of 2005 was an outstanding team full of really talented players and very strong characters. We weren't able to go on and successfully defend the Ashes in 2006-7 because of a number of factors, not least a bad run of injuries. In general terms, we didn't really build on that as many hoped we would after that outstanding 2005 success but it should never be forgotten...