by Veena Gabriel

The Australian Captain is in serious trouble,what with retirement of Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath, the present debacle with Proteas is due to the absence of these stalwarts at least this is what the former Australian captains feel.
As per Richard Benaud, Bill Lawry and Mark Taylor, the present situation is a transitory phase which the Aussies are facing. The one time world champions of cricket as well as of sledging are going through a lean phase and they are compelling people to be patient and understanding.
They have reminded people of the year 1963-64 when Benaud along with Neil Harvey, Alan Davidson and Ken ‘Slasher’ MacKay had retired together and Bob Simpson had to rebuild Australian team from the stretch. Ponting is facing a similar situation.
It seems the Australians are in the habit of deserting their team en masse because the same thing happened in 1983-84 when Denis Lillee, Rod Marsh and Greg Chappell retired together and Kepler Wessels went back to South Africa to led his country in the future.
Both Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath leaving has left a hole in the Australian striking side because they had captured nearly 1200 wickets between them and were genuine match winners.
Poor Ponting has to make do without his champions at his disposal and all the former captains are siding and sympathising with him and asking the Australian public to do the same.
One thing is clear. Ponting need not worry. TheAustralians are used to the fact that their cricket team have gaping holes from 1963-64, than 1983-84 and this is just history repeating itself. The performance of the team is naturally affected, they will just take their team failure in their stride.