Former Australia captain Ricky Ponting has turned his hand to crystal-ball gazing in retirement, having predicted both a turning of the tide in the Ashes and the successful return to Test cricket of speedster Mitchell Johnson.
Punter’s predictions on the money?
“I think the England team might be slightly past their absolute peak,” Ponting told the West Australian in October.
“I just think they're getting to that stage where a lot of their guys have been around a long time and they've been at the top or near the top for a while.
“Some of their players would say the same, that they're probably just tapering off a fraction and our boys are on the way up. That's what I'm excited about with this contest.
“I think the Australian team's only going to improve, and sometimes when you have that sort of contest some funny things can happen. I'm not being unrealistic, I know this group of players are going to have to play at their absolute peak to win the Ashes. But I think they can. We've got a great record at the Gabba. If we happen to win that first Test, I believe that's possible.”
And this week in his column for the Daily Mail, Ponting revealed he’d been very much in the minority when suggesting before the first Commonwealth Bank Ashes Test that Mitchell Johnson could make a serious impact.
“I spent some time with Mitch playing for Mumbai Indians at the Indian Premier League earlier this year, and some of the opening spells he sent down were remarkable,” Ponting wrote. “He looked like a different bowler to the one who has occasionally struggled in Ashes contests in the past. And right now he’s got a couple of the England guys exactly where he wants them.
“He’s standing much taller at the crease now, and the arm is coming over nice and high. He’s moving it away from the left-handers and into the right-handers. And he’s doing it at 150kph or more.
“To me, it was no great surprise that Australia decided to unleash Johnson. If you look at the record of the England batsmen against left-arm seamers, it’s not all that flash. We saw the New Zealanders Trent Boult and Neil Wagner bowl well to them earlier in the year. And Johnson’s got a yard of pace on both of them.
“It’s true that the drop-in pitch at Adelaide won’t have the pace and bounce that we saw in Brisbane and can expect for the third Test in Perth. But sometimes, those surfaces can be harder to play the short ball on, because the bounce isn’t quite so predictable. I used to prefer playing the short ball at the Gabba or the WACA: at least you knew what to expect.”