When we put the performance of Ricky Ponting as a captain in perspective, statistically, he is slightly below Steve Waugh. However, it hardly reveals the current form slump of the Australian Team. Andrew Strauss, the captain of England has asserted that the Australians no longer have the aura, which their predecessors possessed.

Australia has played 50 test matches till date since January 2005, out of which they have won 31 test matches, which is not a bad conversion, either. However, after the retirement of Glenn McGrath in 2007, Australia has played 25 test matches and they could manage to win only 12 tests with a bleak success rate of 48 %. In this period they even suffered a demoralizing defeat from the hands of India by a whopping margin of 320 runs and suffered innings defeat twice in a duration of 8 months.

Although Australia is going through a patchy period, their captain Ricky Ponting is still considered as one of their best captains ever with 2 World Cup triumphs under his belt. As far as captaincy is concerned, Ricky Ponting has helmed Australia to victory in 38 out of 59 Test matches. His preceding captain and one of the best captains ever, Steve Waugh has led Australia in 57 Tests and managed 41 wins out of that, which is slightly above Ponting’s feat when we go statistically.

Does this analysis hold any logic? To be very frank, it doesn’t.  After Steve Waugh took over the captaincy from Mark Taylor, the Australians evolved as a very formidable team under his leadership. He infused ruthlessness and professionalism in to the team and made the difference. Ricky Ponting was lucky in his early stages as the captain because he had players like Hayden, Gilchrist, McGrath and Warne who were in their peak form and could change a match by their individual efforts. This is perhaps the problem faced by the current Australian team. They don’t have any match winners apart from the seniors and lacks a consistent strike bowler.

Matches have become even more competent as the teams have realized the fact that Australia are brought to earth and are more vulnerable than before. We can perhaps relate this to the great West Indies in the early 90’s but it will be too early to make a call on this. If we go by the lines of Andrew Strauss, Australia no longer holds the ‘favorites’ tag and will face stiff challenges in the 2009 Champions Trophy and in the 2011 World Cup, where Australia defend their title