As Ricky Ponting nears the end of his career, could Australia unearth another such talent, asks Michael Jeh, when young cricketers in the system can't understand why a single to mid-on is preferable to a boundary through square leg © Getty Images

Ricky Ponting's retirement as captain marks the end of a golden era in Australian cricket, the likes of which I do not believe we will ever see again. His greatness as a batsman still has some years to run out if the Australian selectors are prepared to dispense with tradition and pick the best batsman in the country even though he is no longer captain. Kim Hughes was the last captain I can think of who resigned the captaincy and returned to the ranks in 1984, but his tenure was short-lived at the hands of a mighty West Indian bowling attack. I can't see Ponting suffering that same fate - he is too good a player for that and there aren't any bowling attacks capable of dismantling him in that fashion.

It will be interesting to watch Ponting assimilate back into the nucleus of the team and see if the relief of the burden of captaincy, and the accompanying media spotlight, relaxes or frustrates him. I suspect his sheer class as a batsman will win the day. Watching the way he celebrated his century in Ahmedabad last week suggested a man with yet unfinished business and a steely determination to keep proving people wrong. I predicted his century on my radio programme a few days before the match but to be honest, it was hardly a brave prediction. His record in big matches, coupled with his skill and mental strength pointed to the very real possibility that he would play an innings of some significance very soon. And so it was proved.

The end of the Ponting era and the end of the World Cup also heralds the end of the cricket season in Australia. From grown men to little boys, the kits are being packed up and cricket disappears from the everyday landscape for at least five months. That's one reason why I think Australia will struggle to repeat a period of success that started with the latter part of the Border era and finished today with Ponting. Unlike the Asian countries for whom cricket has no real natural predator, Australia has a strong football culture (AFL, rugby codes, soccer) and it's cricket infrastructure is never going to be able to compete with the sheer numbers of the people for whom cricket is much more than just another sport.

My own cricket season came to a premature end halfway through a grand final, courtesy a split webbing and eleven stitches in my bowling hand. The Under-8 team that I coach also finished up last Saturday. Many of the young lads in that team are unlikely to continue in the sport, not for any other reason than a lack of genuine passion for the game. My son is one of the exceptions; despite not showing any great natural ability (at least I know he's my son!!!), his love for the game is quite unlike any of his mates. He mourned the end of the season while a few of his mates breathed a sigh of relief. He went straight to the backyard to start practicing for next season while his mates probably kicked footballs against the fence. I just can't see this happening in the Colombo of my youth where there was never even a suggestion that cricket needed an 'off season'. It wasn't necessarily structured games of organised cricket but backyard/laneway battles that raged all evening until darkness descended and we reluctantly straggled home, swatting mosquitoes with imaginary pull shots.

Australia's strength at the top level will always be strong. There's too much money in the system for that not to happen among the top cricketers in the country. It's lower down the ladder where our lack of depth will be exposed. Perhaps no one outside the country will ever see this because all they see is a national team that will always be competitive. Looking at the way junior cricket is played (and coached), I fear for the long-term future of the lower rungs of cricket.

Despite my pessimism in this narrow sense, I can still see blue sky. Through sheer chance, I came across an unassuming chap called Cameron Tradell who runs a coaching business called Sweetsport. I watched him coach my seven-year-old son, listened to the way he simplified everything down to the most basic level and then saw some amazing results within the hour! It humbled me that there are coaches who come to the game with no great reputations as elite players themselves but still manage to cut through to young kids. His coaching techniques were so simple it made me think "why didn't I think of that?", but the truth is that I've never heard anybody quite communicate with young children like he did.

There are other coaches like Cameron around the country who volunteer their time and wisdom in hidden corners, often unnoticed and unheralded. The system will probably never discover them because they fly under the radar without blowing their own trumpets and attracting the attention of cricket administrators. Parents like me who have played a decent level of cricket tend to dominate junior coaching roles without anyone ever questioning whether I can translate my own cricketing knowledge into a language that youngsters can understand. In one hour, Cameron made more progress than I was able to achieve in three years. It served as a humble reminder that the best talent, players or coaches, are often found by accident, in environments that have a love of cricket that transcends politics, parents and over-administration.

Junior cricket, at my son's club anyway, is predominantly played in the ‘V’ between midwicket and fine-leg, dominated by strong boys who can play the 'hoick' every ball. Most bowlers at this age can barely get the ball to the other end without a few wides each over. A far cry indeed from the Azar Maidan in Mumbai where I recently watched a group of very young lads with impeccable batting techniques facing a bowler who bowled doosras on request! These Indian kids were probably not deemed "elite" and will probably never grace our television screens but their rudimentary skills suggested that something (or somebody) has got to these youngsters at an early age, and set them up with a framework that they can extend as their bodies grow stronger.

Cameron Tradell was one of the few coaches who was able to get the message across to my son (and his friend) that playing straight was a long-term goal that would outlast the temporary glory of scoring cheap runs exclusively through square leg. Try telling a seven-year-old that technique is more important than runs - this was the first time playing straight made sense because of the use of a unique bat that rewarded the boys for hitting the ball with a full face. It absolutely pinged off the sweet spot when they hit straight down the ground and all of a sudden, the hoick was yesterday's shot!

Ponting himself was a junior prodigy, brought up on a classical technique and clearly coached by someone who knew how to coach a kid properly. We are reminded today that soon he will no longer stride out to bat for Australia at number three, arguably our greatest ever in that crucial position. I don't think we'll ever see the likes of Ponting again in this country unless our junior cricket system can encourage kids who can bat for long periods and play straight. Not unless we can find ways to encourage coaches who can see the big picture and can find ways to communicate those simple techniques to young minds who cannot easily understand why a single to mid-on is preferable to a boundary through square leg. That's the difference I see at the grassroots level between the Asian countries and Australia.

Perhaps it has always been thus ... perhaps we'll look back on the Ponting era and wonder if we'll ever see another batsman of his quality. Yes, Sachin Tendulkar is another special batsman but somehow, I expect those cricket-crazy countries, distracted by little else, to produce another Little Master again. I showed my son some footage from that maidan in India and his jaw dropped. And then he picked up his rugby ball and walked out the back door. Cricket season has finished - time to move on. Et tu Ponting.

Both teams have their raw sporting assets, but everybody knows this is a contest that is going to be won or lost in the head © AFP

An India-Pakistan semi-final [in a World Cup] has never happened before and is unlikely to happen again for at least another generation. On the basis of rarity alone, therefore, this would be an encounter to cherish. But the matter goes well beyond the obvious.

Sports ultimately are a form of make-believe, but here we have a sporting rivalry with roots so deep that it is no longer clear which is the genuine conflict and which is the proxy. If you took a survey of Indians and Pakistanis today, they will not be clear whether it is more important to
defeat your neighbour in cricket or war. Quite likely, a majority will prefer victory in cricket. To this extent, the goal of any cricket diplomacy has already been achieved.

Both teams have their raw sporting assets, but everybody knows this is a contest that is going to be won or lost in the head. Pakistan is a team that in recent times has been punched in the face, kicked in the ribs, slapped around, and spat upon which means they now have almost nothing to lose. This gives them an edge in fearlessness. India, on the other hand, are riding a tidal wave of support and popularity, which means they have already secured the upper hand. This gives them an edge in confidence.

In terms of skill and tactics, you could not have asked for a more tantalising contrast. Indian and Pakistani cricket traditions are products of the same soil, but over the decades, India became a nation of great batsmen while Pakistan became a nation of great bowlers. How and why this happened is a mystery, although theories abound and the topic is a staple of Asian cricket discussions.

In this tournament alone, Pakistani bowlers restricted Australia to 176 and West Indies to 112, when the same teams racked up an additional 70-80 runs each against Indian bowlers. Moreover, the combined economy rate of Pakistan's four most economical bowlers is 3.57 runs per over, while for India the corresponding figure is nearly an extra run per over higher at 4.53. To drive this point home, Indians have bowled only 7 maidens in the tournament thus far while Pakistanis have bowled 24.

On the batting side, Pakistan have crossed 300 only once so far, and that too against Kenya, when India have exceeded 300 against two Test sides (England and Bangladesh) and very nearly did it against a third (South Africa). Moreover, Pakistan has yet to record a century in this tournament, while India has already notched up five. Perhaps most impressively, the strike rate of India's top four run-getters ranges from 86 to 121, while for Pakistan the corresponding range is a clear rung slower at 73 to 84.

What we have coming up in Mohali, therefore, is in some ways the ultimate cricket contest: a side that knows the craft of delivering a ball pitting its wits against an outfit that knows it way with a bat; in a knockout encounter where the context is influenced by history, culture, politics, and God knows what else; and whose stakes circumstances have pushed impossibly high.

India have a perfect 4-0 record against Pakistan in World Cup matches, but in the 2011 edition Pakistan have thus far enjoyed a better run, topping their group with five wins, while India came second in their group with four wins and a tie. Even against Australia and West Indies, the two sides in this competition that India and Pakistan have both faced, Pakistan's wins were by bigger margins than India's. Despite these differences, Pakistan are the underdogs for Mohali. This may irk their fans, who are craving momentum and hype, but it probably suits the team just fine.

Meanwhile, the atmosphere in Pakistan is tense and anxious. A cardiologist friend of mine says the stress of unblocking coronary arteries in the middle of someone's heart attack is nothing compared with the anxiety he is feeling in the build-up to Mohali. A neurosurgeon friend, whose professional work requires opening skulls to repair diseased brains, made a similar observation. Even people who’ve never paid much attention to cricket are reporting butterflies in the stomach. They may sound silly and frivolous to an outsider, but many Indians and Pakistanis will identify with these confessions.

Coming into the semi-final, Pakistan have skilfully negotiated several challenging hurdles. Handicapped by an ineffective opening pair, an unreliable wicket-keeper, and the absence of their two best seamers, they have made the most of the hand that was dealt. A grand treasure beckons in the distance, but Afridi and his men find themselves separated from it by impossibly treacherous terrain. They are in a zone where the tactical guide goes out the window and survival instincts must take over. Many people are saying it doesn’t get better than this in cricket, but it could be persuasively argued that it doesn’t get better, period.

Young players in Australia lack the enthusiasm to match the Asian giants ©

Ricky Ponting's retirement as captain marks the end of a golden era in Australian cricket, the likes of which I do not believe we will ever see again. His greatness as a batsman still has some years to run if the Australian selectors are prepared to dispense with tradition and still pick the best batsman in the country even though he is no longer captain. Kim Hughes was the last captain I can think of who resigned the captaincy and returned to the ranks in 1984 but his tenure was short-lived at the hands of a mighty West Indian bowling attack. I can't see Ponting suffering that same fate - he is too good a player for that and there aren't any bowling attacks capable of dismantling him in that fashion.

It will be interesting to watch Ponting assimilate back into the nucleus of the team and see if the relief of the burden of captaincy, and the accompanying media spotlight, relaxes or frustrates him. I suspect his sheer class as a batsman will win the day. Watching the way he celebrated his century in Ahmedabad last week suggested a man with yet unfinished business and a steely determination to keep proving people wrong. I predicted his century on my radio program a few days before the match but to be honest, it was hardly a brave prediction. His record in big matches, coupled with his skill and mental strength pointed to the very real possibility that he would play an innings of some significance very soon. And so it proved.

The end of the Ponting era and the end of the World Cup also heralds the end of the cricket season in Australia. From grown men to little boys, the kits are being packed up and cricket disappears from the everyday landscape for at least five months. That's one reason why I think Australia will struggle to repeat a period of success that started with the latter part of the Border era and finished today with Ponting. Unlike the Asian countries for whom cricket has no real natural predator, Australia has a strong football culture (AFL, rugby codes, soccer) and it's cricket infrastructure is never going to be able to compete with the sheer numbers of people for whom cricket is much more than another sport.

My own cricket season came to a premature end halfway through a grand final, courtesy of split webbing and eleven stitches in my bowling hand. The Under-8s team that I coach also finished up last Saturday. Many of the young lads in that team are unlikely to continue in the sport, not for any other reason than a lack of genuine passion for the game. My son is one of the exceptions; despite not showing any great natural ability (at least I know he's my son!!!), his love for the game is quite unlike any of his mates. He mourned the end of the season whilst a few of his mates breathed a sigh of relief. He went straight to the backyard to start practising again for next season whilst his mates probably kicked footballs against the fence. I just can't see this happening in the Colombo of my youth where there was never even a suggestion that cricket needed an 'off season'. It wasn't necessarily structured games of organised cricket but backyard/laneway battles that raged all evening until darkness descended and we reluctantly straggled home, swatting mosquitoes with imaginary pull shots.

Australia's strength at the top level will always be strong. There's too much money in the system for that not to happen amongst the top cricketers in the country. It's lower down the ladder where our lack of depth will be exposed. Perhaps no one outside the country will ever see this because all they see is a national team that will always be competitive. Looking at the way junior cricket is played (and coached), I fear for the long-term future of of the lower rungs of cricket.

Despite my pessimism in this narrow sense, I can still see blue sky. Through sheer chance, I came across an unassuming chap called Cameron Tradell who runs a coaching business called Sweetsport. I watched him coach my 7-year-old son, listened to the way he simplified everything down to the most basic level and then saw some amazing results within the hour! It humbled me that there are coaches who come to the game with no great reputations as elite players themselves but still manage to cut through to young kids. His coaching techniques were so simple as to almost be "why didn't I think of that?" but the truth is that I've never heard anybody else quite communicate with young children like he did.

There are other coaches like Cameron around the country who volunteer their time and wisdom in hidden corners, often unnoticed and unheralded. The system will probably never discover them because they fly under the radar without blowing their own trumpets and without attracting the attention of the cricket administrators who often miss these talented coaches. Parents like me who have played a decent level of cricket tend to dominate junior coaching roles without anyone ever questioning whether I can translate my own cricketing knowledge into a language that youngsters can understand. In one hour, Cameron made more progress than I was able to achieve in three years. It served as a humble reminder that the best talent, players or coaches, are often found by accident, in environments that have a love of cricket that transcends politics, parents and over-administration.

Junior cricket, at my son's club anyway, is predominantly played in the V between midwicket and fine-leg. dominated by strong boys who can play the 'hoik' to every ball. Most bowlers at this age can barely get the ball to the other end without a few wides each over. A far cry indeed from the Azar Maidan in Mumbai where I recently watched a group of very young lads with impeccable batting techniques facing a bowler who bowled doosras on request! These Indian kids were probably not deemed "elite" and will probably never grace our tv screens but their rudimentary skills suggested that something (or somebody) has got to these youngsters at an early age and set them up with a framework that they can extend as their bodies grow stronger. Cameron Tradell was one of the few coaches who was able to get the message across to my son (and friend) that playing straight was a long-term goal that would outlast the temporary glory of scoring cheap runs exclusively through square leg. Try telling a seven year old that technique is more important than runs - this was the first time playing straight made sense because of the use of a unique bat that rewarded the boys for hitting the ball with a full face. It absolutely pinged off the sweet spot when they hit straight down the ground and all of a sudden, the hoik was yesterday's shot!

Ponting himself was a junior prodigy, brought up on a classical technique and clearly coached by someone who knew how to coach a kid properly. We are reminded today that soon he will no longer stride out to bat for Australia at number three, arguably our greatest ever in that crucial position. I don't think we'll ever see the likes of Ponting again in this country unless our junior cricket system can encourage kids who can bat for long periods and play straight. Not unless we can find ways to encourage coaches who can see the big picture and can find ways to communicate those simple techniques to young minds who cannot easily understand why a single to mid-on is less preferable to a boundary through square leg. That's the difference I see at the grassroots level between the Asian countries and Australia at a very young age.

Perhaps it has always been thus....perhaps we'll look back on the Ponting era and wonder if we'll ever see another batsman of his quality. Yes, Sachin Tendulkar is another special batsman but somehow, I expect those cricket-crazy countries, distracted by little else, to produce another Little Master again. I showed my son some footage from that maidan in India and his jaw dropped. And then he picked up his rugby ball and walked out the back door. Cricket season finished - time to move on. Et tu Ponting.

England may not be welcomed back with quite the pomp they entered the tournament with, but they have no reason to hang their heads in shame © AFP

At least they weren't embarrassing. They arrive home as disappointed losers rather than hopeless chumps. There is no need to put bags over their heads and smuggle them out of the airport in an unmarked coach; cricket fans spotting them in the arrivals hall are more likely to smile sympathetically and mutter “bad luck” than to hurl abuse, as they might have at the national jokes which England's previous three World Cup parties became.

In their matches against India and South Africa, they showed that they belonged on the world stage; had the groups led on to a Super Eight stage, they would have carried forward more points than anyone else since they did not lose to a major team until the quarter-final.

However, the quarter-final was always the realistic limit of their ambitions. They may well have been weary after a long tour of Australia with no real break before the World Cup. They were certainly unlucky with the succession of injuries, which meant that they never had the same squad to choose from for consecutive matches.

But the bottom line is that England are poorly equipped for one-day cricket on subcontinent pitches.

They lack power hitters. They are generally nervous against spin, allowing themselves to be tied down by second-rank part-timers who should at least be milkable, even if they bowl tidily enough for whacking them out of the park to be too risky. And they don't really have those second-rank part-timers themselves. Apart from Graeme Swann, their full-timers are second-rank spinners at best, at least in one-day terms. Selecting Adil Rashid rather than Michael Yardy would have been an improvement, but I still don't think he's really up to international standard yet.

If we wave a magic wand and give them a fully-fit, adequately-rested squad, it's still hard to see England going any further. The first-choice XI for the game against Sri Lanka at the Premadasa would have been Andrew Strauss, Kevin Pietersen, Jonathan Trott, Ian Bell, Eoin Morgan, Ravi Bopara, Matt Prior, Tim Bresnan, Graeme Swann, Stuart Broad, and James Tredwell. Perhaps they would have made a more competitive 263 or so and Sri Lanka would have lost four or five wickets on the way to overhauling it, but the result would have been the same.

Which isn't to say that the selectors did a perfect job with the limited pool available.

Picking Paul Collingwood was entirely understandable. Most World Cups feature two or three seasoned campaigners who have, as it turns out, reached the end of the road: in the present tourney, Shoaib Akhtar is the other obvious example. Jimmy Anderson's selection was also understandable, given that he has been dubbed the leader of the attack, but it betrays a failure of analysis. He is a potent bowler when armed with two slips and a gully, but when all he has is backward point and third man there is nothing to stop enterprising batsmen looking to heave his length balls over long off.

However, without wishing to add to the man's troubles, the selection of Michael Yardy was a horrible mistake. His forte is restricting batsmen to singles, and while there is some value in a Twenty20 bowler whose four overs will usually go for 26 and rarely for over 30, ten overs for an almost guaranteed 0 for 68 is pretty much useless in the longer game.

Of course, there are lessons to be learned and taken into account when the planning starts for the next World Cup - and I agree with Andy Flower that now is the time to start – but there is no need for the slash-and-burn approach rightly taken after the humbling exits of the previous three England World Cup rabbles (“teams” being rather too kind a description of them).

This was certainly a team; it took a great deal of collective willpower to pull the fat out of the fire against South Africa and West Indies; the individuals also seemed to have roles they understood, usually looking as though they knew what they were trying to do – and it was usually the right thing even if they didn't do it as well as they might.

They did not show themselves off to their best advantage and there is no justification for congratulating them on a job well done - but they need not hang their heads in shame. They got as far as they should have, unlike South Africa. They are only guilty of not playing better than anyone expected, like New Zealand or Pakistan.

Six out of ten overall for me, with a gold star for the thrill-rides which lit up what was otherwise a pretty humdrum group stage.

England continued to thrill with their narrow win over the West Indies, but their fans would appreciate the occasional sedate march to victory © Getty Images

When the going gets tough, the tough go shopping - so that's what I did.

As far as I was concerned, England's 243 would not be enough and when Chris Gayle smashed Tim Bresnan's first over for 18, it all looked pretty inevitable. Gayle is usually one of my favourite batsmen to watch, but this time I wasn't in the mood. Had it been an ODI in a bilateral series, I could happily have sat back and wallowed in some extravagant strokeplay, but watching him hammering nails into the coffin of England's World Cup was just going to be too painful. I wandered out to buy food for dinner and have a relaxing cup of coffee.

When I got home and checked the score on ESPNcricinfo, it was 204/6, which was still hopeless for England. I opened another tab and caught up on the news. Then I noticed that the score had flicked round to 223/9, which made it bearable to turn on the TV and watch the end. Knowing the result made it essential to watch the highlights later on to find out how the drama had unfolded.

What a relief! It's not that I care too much about the World Cup - to me, and to a large number of other England fans, retaining the Ashes was far more important than winning a one-day tournament, however prestigious – but I still don't want England eliminated embarrassingly. I generally like seeing Bangladesh do well, but on this occasion I think I can be excused for hoping that South Africa thrash them and put English qualification beyond doubt. After all the tensions of England's actual matches, the last thing I need is to be on tenterhooks all weekend waiting on India beating West Indies.

At least the management have rid themselves of their superstition about the need for Jimmy Anderson's run-leaking and have acknowledged that Paul Collingwood's form has been left down the back of his sofa at home. I'm also pleased that they have seen sense and stopped believing in Michael Yardy as a second spinner: Yardy is a very useful cricketer whose slow-medium bowling works quite well in T20, but he is not worth ten overs in the longer format.

England have a pleasantly large pool of quality bowlers, which made replacing Anderson easy. Collingwood's bowling has always been extremely handy, though, and Strauss has hitherto shown little confidence in Ravi Bopara as a fifth/sixth bowler. This was a tougher decision, but when Bopara removed Darren Sammy he probably inked his name on the team sheet for some time to come.

Whether these personnel changes will bring any more consistency to the team's performance remains unknown. The only constant so far, to my chagrin, has been Jonathan Trott, whom I nominated a while back as my least favourite England player.

I suppose his lengthy stays at the crease have had the saving grace that they have afforded me the opportunity to refine my dislike. At least he acknowledges the shorter format by being not quite as meticulous with his crease excavations, but now I know why I wish he were someone else.

I don't have a problem with his strike rate. His job is to keep the runs ticking over while he acts as an anchor, a job which Rahul Dravid did with considerable success for India. Dravid was frequently blamed for India losing an ODI, the contention being that he was putting too much pressure on the other batsmen – once memorably described as “using up all the hot water” and adopted as group-speak ever after - which always pained me because I am a big fan of his. That I dislike Trott should not prevent me allowing him the same latitude, and it does not.

One may well feel after his regulation half-century that it would be better if he had scored another ten in the time he had at the crease, but criticising his strike rate is rather like criticising a driver who keeps to the speed limit. If the team's game plan revolves around a reliable backbone, then it's the rest of the batsmen whose job is to hit the big shots, and you can't blame the anchor for them not fulfilling their part of the bargain any more than one can blame Graeme Swann for not bowling more maidens if the pace bowlers foul up.

I now know that what irks me about Trott is that he plays everything possible, and quite a bit of the improbable, into the leg side. There are fine strokes to the leg: the on-drive and hook can be magnificent. But they are played with the batsman standing tall while Trott hunches his shoulders over the ball for the nudge, the push and the nurdle. It's undeniably effective and he is very successful with it, but attractive it isn't.

In the grand scheme of things, this is no more significant than my detestation of parsnips or a feeling that the Mission Impossible movies would have been better with Johnny Depp instead of Tom Cruise, and I shall be very happy if Trott crabs his way to a match-winning hundred in the World Cup final. Just don't ask me to enjoy it.

The look on Andrew Strauss's face makes it clear even he doesn't understand England's Jekyll and Hyde performances © Getty Images

The cricketing gods are merciless on those of us who pontificate about the game. When I, an England fan, moaned gloomily before the World Cup started that the long group stage was likely to be an interminable bore, they clearly took note and delivered the most thrilling group stage an England fan could possibly have wished for. Only to England fans, mind you, as matches not involving them have nearly all gone the way one would have predicted and the finishes have mostly been anything but close (note “nearly all” and “mostly” - the India-SA game was an absolute classic), but there's an omelette big enough for ten waiting to be made with the egg streaming off my face right now.

The paradox of England's performances is that if they manage to qualify for the quarter-finals, they will probably do so in fourth place without having lost to any of the top three in their group, which takes some doing.

Obviously it's their fallibility against the minnows that has caused the hair-tearing, rendering many young England fans prematurely bald, but it's as though they have decided to match their performance to the quality of opposition. Were we to have seen Andrew Strauss nodding in satisfaction at a handy five wides when Bangladesh were falling behind the rate, we'd all be suspecting the mother of all betting scams was in progress, but the looks of total bewilderment on the faces of everyone are utterly convincing evidence that they are as baffled as us spectators.

It is not easy to explain it because their matches against India and South Africa have shown that they possess much of the quality batting, bowling and fielding that they need.

But if you put me up against a wall and threaten to make me watch Neil McKenzie and Deep Dasgupta batting to save a Test against an attack spearheaded by Paul Collingwood and Ashley Giles bowling over the wicket, if I don't give you an answer, I'm going to have to put it down to superstition.

Superstition, because that is the only reason I can think of for the faith that successive England captains have placed in Jimmy Anderson as a bowler who can contain batsmen who are intent on hitting out, especially when the ball is pitched on what is usually called a good length. I've lost count of the number of matches in which Anderson has been called on to bowl at the death, when the only death that ensues is that of England's chance of winning. I have enormous respect for Anderson the Test bowler, but if England must pick him for 50-over games, why can't captains learn that he is only going to be effective in the middle overs?

Of course it's invidious to single out one player in what is obviously a collective failure, but I was answering under hypothetical duress.

Should England fail to progress, it will continue the team's embarrassing run of World Cup failure, but it will at least have been qualitatively different. In the past, their failures have been because they were woefully inadequate; basing their strategies and tactics on outmoded ideas that would have worked in the World Cup before last, but this time round it has been a failure of execution rather than intention. Choking, in other words.

But whatever else we can say about England's performances, they have been anything but dull – and for that at least they deserve everyone's thanks.

Australia captain Ricky Ponting described the pitch at the Premadasa Stadium in Colombo as rolled mud © Getty Images

Every time a pitch on the subcontinent spins a bit, it apparently devalues the integrity of cricket. It seems that "good" cricket should only ever be played on fast, bouncy, batsmen-friendly pitches that start to spin a little bit very late in the game. Anything other than that, if it's played in the subcontinent, is not really cricket. Apparently. Especially after Shane Warne retired.

Ricky Ponting's thinly-veiled swipe at the pitch at Premadasa Stadium in Colombo is the latest instalment in that line of reasoning. Likening it to "rolled mud" is another (polite?) way of saying that it was unfair or doctored or against the way cricket should be played. To be honest, I haven't watched a ball of the World Cup yet but after reading these comments, I took a good, hard look at the scorecard from the match and then watched the replay before I wrote this piece. From that limited perspective, I have these arguments to put forward to advocate for more pitches like this in world cricket.

Firstly, as Ponting himself admitted, the Sri Lankans "had a pretty good idea that it was going to be that slow and low and was going to spin a fair bit, hence the reason they played their spinners." Duh! So what's the problem with that Ricky? You could choose to play all of your spinners if you wanted to. You are allowed to nominate your team before the toss, you know. Oh that's right, you went into a World Cup campaign on the subcontinent with a predominantly fast bowling attack and a spinner (Krezja) who was chosen after all the other options had been exhausted. And that's somebody else's fault?

Apparently this pitch was going to be difficult to chase runs on. Can't recall any mention of "rolled mud" before the toss, can you? They spun the coin, Sri Lanka won the toss and all of a sudden, it becomes a problem. I thought that's why we toss the coin in the first place; to allow the winning captain to make a decision on what he'd like to do first. Is that totally unique to this World Cup on the subcontinent too? The captain who wins the toss has never had an advantage before in any game of cricket?

Apparently this pitch was going to be difficult to chase runs on. Can't recall any mention of "rolled mud" before the toss, can you? They spun the coin, Sri Lanka won the toss and all of a sudden, it becomes a problem. I thought that's why we toss the coin in the first place; to allow the winning captain to make a decision on what he'd like to do first. Is that totally unique to this World Cup on the subcontinent too? The captain who wins the toss has never had an advantage before in the game of cricket?

Let's look at the way the game itself panned out before it rained. Sri Lanka were 146 for after 33 overs with a batting Powerplay still up their sleeve and two batsmen well settled at the crease. It would not be inconceivable to surmise that they might have scored 250+. Not the sort of pitch that could be called a "shocker" then. Perhaps it might have been a shocker if you had poor spin bowlers or your batsmen were poor players of spin bowling but for a well balanced team (like the three-time World Champions surely are), 146/3 in the 33rd over with a Powerplay still to come is not quite the diabolical state of affairs that I envisaged when I first saw the "rolled mud" comments and rushed to check out the scorecard.

Of the three wickets that fell, the first (Dilshan) was an ambitious drive to second slip after a period when the 'red mist' had descended on the batsman and he was flaying at anything. Good bowling on Tait's part but hardly the sort of wicket that could be attributed to the pitch. The second dismissal (Tharanga) was a slashing cut shot off Lee brilliantly intercepted by Smith at point, again hardly something that could be blamed on the pitch. Jayawardene's run-out was due to another piece of Smith brilliance. Can't blame the pitch for this one either.

From this point on, Sangakkara and Samaraweera put on 71 in approx 17 overs (with no Powerplay) until the heavens opened up. The Australian spinners, Krezja and Smith, bowled 12 overs and were not able to get a single wicket. Sure, the ball turned appreciably and it was clearly a pitch that would have suited any decent spin bowler but the facts are that not one of the dismissals could reasonably be attributed to the pitch or to the spinners. Rolled mud? I was expecting to see a scorecard that had Sri Lanka at 130 for 7, perhaps with Krezja, Smith and Hussey running through the top order. Instead, it looked suspiciously like a total heading towards 250 and an engrossing evening's cricket with fine batsmen like Shane Watson, Ponting and Michael Clarke batting against high quality spinners like Muttiah Muralitharan and Ajantha Mendis. How is that not good cricket?

Which brings me back to my original point of what constitutes a good cricket pitch? Is it only Perth, Brisbane, The Oval and Johannesburg that qualify in this category? What happens when teams get bounced out on these sorts of decks, unable to cope with seam, steep bounce and a lack of skill to execute horizontal bat shots? Would it be true to say that this was a "cow paddock" or a "savannah" with too much grass on it? Would both teams not have the chance to choose their teams before the toss and then play according to the conditions? Have home teams never prepared pitches that suit their strengths? Or does that only happen in the subcontinent?

I recall way back in the 1980s when the West Indians were nigh on unbeatable and no one could match their pace attack. Australia prepared two turning tracks at the SCG in the 84/85 and 88/89 series and gave them a good hiding. Murray Bennett and Bob Holland, those legendary spinners, took 15 wickets in one of those matches whilst those other notable spin 'greats', Allan Border, Trevor Hohns and Peter Taylor took 18 of the 20 West Indian dismissals that fell in the 1989 fixture. The only wicket to a fast bowler went to Merv Hughes. As a young boy watching those Tests, I rejoiced, not only in Australia's victories but also at the sheer enjoyment of watching a different style of cricket to the usual fast bowling battery and the way batsmen had to adjust to different conditions. Ponting would only have been a mere lad then, more engrossed in rolling in the mud than worrying about "rolled mud".

I've lost count of the number of times we have skittled the Asian teams, sometimes even England and New Zealand (and recent West Indian teams) on pitches that were so suited to fast bowlers that the spinners never even warmed up (if in fact we even selected any spinners on such pitches). No complaints then that teams went into the match with more than two quicks! So what if a pitch is expected to spin and Sri Lanka selects three spinners? Does that somehow devalue the contest? As Tendulkar was once alleged to have said "if it spins, does that mean it is not Test cricket?"

What about the famous Mumbai Test Match in 2004 (Test #1720) when Australia collapsed chasing a modest 107 runs to be all out for 93? For 90% of that match, when they were on top and renowned spin bowlers like Nathan Hauritz and Michael Clarke were cutting swathes through the vaunted Indian batting line up, there was no talk of it being the "shocking pitch" that it was later described as. In the very next Test Australia played, they demolished NZ for 76 in Brisbane (Test #1721) and a few weeks later routed Pakistan for 73 in Perth (Test #1726). I don't recall either of the touring teams making disparaging comments about the pitch being a "goat track" or an unacceptable green top. They manfully accepted that they were playing away from home and were "touched up" by a far superior team who knew how to play those conditions much better than their techniques could handle. Isn't that just good cricket?

So for the rest of this World Cup, can we simply accept that it might just spin a little bit (surprise, surprise) and the winner of this tournament will be the team that reads the condition best, selects an appropriate XI for that match and can then execute skills to suit those conditions? Australia has the skill to win this event but let's just hope we do it with a bit of grace and an acceptance that the conditions may not necessarily be like what we're used to back home. Did we seriously not think the pitches might turn a bit in this World Cup? Is that why we went the high-risk strategy of selecting a squad with lots of fast bowlers and one specialist spinner? Did no one tell the selectors (or Ricky) that this World Cup was being played on the subcontinent and there was a rumour that it might favour spin bowlers? Was it that much of a shock that the Premadasa pitch was dry and suited the home team's strengths? Just think back to Sydney 1989, West Indies and Border's 11/96 before we whinge too much about home ground advantage.

Rolled mud indeed! When the opposition is 146 for 3 in the 33rd over and your spinners haven't been good enough to get a single wicket, it's not the ideal time to throw your toys out of the cradle Ricky. Or your protector at the TV set!