From Gerard Jayaranjan, India

Don't change the channel when Yusuf Pathan's at the crease © AFP

These days statistics and numbers are thrown at us like a half-tracker from Mitchell Johnson. Well, at least for me, they don’t matter. It maybe sacrilegious to many a cricket enthusiast, but I don’t care how many runs Sachin has made, how many wickets Murali has taken or for that matter how many times Ponting has waggled his finger at the umpire.

What matters to me is the inexplicable feeling that these guys, like many others, evoke inside me when they come on to bat or bowl or take a running start at the covers. That feeling when your heart brims over with hope, when your stomach plays host to butterflies is what makes that player special. That sinking feeling when a Kallis walks out to bat or watching Ponting get on the front foot. That feeling when you know in your gut that today may not be your day.

It’s much like love. You don’t need statistics and past history to point you towards a relationship that will work out. It seldom does. It’s your gut and the slow melancholic dance of the butterflies in your stomach that points you to a direction. Yes, a lot like love, actually.

It is the same feeling that proves to me that Ganguly is best not playing the IPL. Hold on to your effigies. I don’t care how many runs he made in the last IPL or whether he was the most successful captain. What I care about is that the God of the off-side no longer evokes the same emotion in me. That emotion of knowing that while Dada is at the crease, no off-side field is perfect, no bowler is dangerous and there is nothing called an off-side field.

I don’t know what Yusuf Pathan’s career average is. Or his highest score. All I know is that when he takes guard, I don’t change the channels, no matter how bad the batting side is playing. To me, that matters. More than numbers.

From Sam Barnett, United Kingdom

The more the merrier: Why does Australian cricket stick to six state teams when 18 are clearly better © Getty Images

In light of England’s recent and consistent success over Australia it is only all too evident that Australian cricket has some serious structural deficiencies. Fear not Australians, for these issues can be amended with a simple overhaul of Australian domestic structure that can be digested in three easy steps.

1. Australian cricket is too efficient. Six states? Why not eighteen? This way players who aren’t going to be good enough for international cricket can still make a living, averaging somewhere around 30 with the bat and 40 with the ball, all the while being able to complain that they play too much cricket. Indeed, without such charity these “honest” fellows would have to get a real job. Furthermore, a double-figure amount of domestic sides allows for an effective drain for all that lovely windfall of cash generated by the international side. This, in turn, can be used to build a series of quaint 15-20,000 seater stadiums, none quite big enough to satiate public demand for international cricket but all too big for domestic cricket itself. This has a number of wholly positive effects. Firstly, it allows for a rise in ticket prices that keeps English cricket where it rightfully belongs: in the hands of the upper-middle class. Secondly, it enables county games to have an adequate number of empty seats: not so many (as in Australia) as to be upsetting to those partaking, but no so few (as in New Zealand) as to make a player question whether he is actually a professional sportsman at all.

2. South Africans. It seems your system’s not producing sufficient players, no? Never fear, South African private schools are here! A guaranteed source of unflinching, unquestioning talent and one in which their development has been completely paid for by CSA and privileged parents. One wouldn’t even have to worry for a lack of patriotism, a few seasons at a county and you have yourself a fully fledged Englishman; it can be assumed that such a process could easily be adapted to any want-away South Africans who find themselves ashore Bondi Beach. While it’s unlikely that the pesky issue of a spinner who can turn milk will be solved, this recent spate of collapses - particularly the current vacuum of runs at places three and four - can be solved instantaneously with a couple of conspicuous accents. Gosh, you really have wasted time trying to fix problems with, wait for it, Australians!

3. Sky money. The Holy Grail for all cricket boards. Forget that our current crop of players, the most successful in generations, were raised in an era of unprecedented free-for-air coverage; no, the cricket XIs of the future will have been raised by ECB Certificate Level 1 coaches and sporadic coaching days with free oversized t-shirts. Besides, youngsters won’t have to sit down and learn from their heroes on TV, they’ll be to busy playing with their community’s free NPower Kwik Cricket set. Even better, this system enables the successful isolation of cricket to the upper-middle class, just in case those pesky peasants thought they might be able to watch live cricket at home if not the stadiums - the cheek! Along with an epidemic of minimally trained coaches, Sky money is extremely useful for giving jobs to the boys. Dean Jones looking a bit lonesome? Just make up a job, that’s how we keep Gatt’s fridge full - all one needs do is feed the press some guff about “Managing Cricket Partnerships”. Just think the amount of revenue you are wasting by trying to make cricket “accessible”!

So, those who “Come from a land down under, where the women glow and the men plunder” (or so I’m reliably told), I hope you have to come realise just where you are going wrong. Simply adopt these aforementioned reforms and Australian cricket will be well on the way for excellent long-term growth, just like it is on these green and pleasant lands.

From Daniel Cotton, Australia

Deliberations over field settings hold up play © AFP

Over-rates in Test cricket are too slow. Everybody knows it, from the spectator at the ground who gives up on their slow hand clap from fatigue to the ICC who have tried imposing fines and bans for slow captains and teams. The ICC’s efforts have had little effect though. The problem is that taking your time setting the field is an advantage, and there needs to be an in-game disadvantage that offsets it. Facility already exists in the laws to warn players and award penalty runs for slow play but umpires are reluctant to act. When everybody is slow, who do you penalise? In any case penalty runs are unpalatable to many -- a last resort, to be applied only for unsporting play.

Fortunately there is another solution, and it’s so simple you’ll wonder why no one has thought of it before. It’s this: delay the option to take the new ball by one over for every over the captain is behind the minimum over-rate. This should be easy to implement. Over-rates are already displayed on scoreboards around the world. All that is required is that after the 80th over, the number of extra overs that is to be bowled is displayed FIFA-injury-time style to the players and umpires in the middle.

In Test cricket the minimum over-rate works out at four minutes per over. So for every four minutes behind that the fielding team is upon finishing their 80th over, they have to bowl one more before they can get their hands on a new cherry. As soon as the 80th over is finished, the clock starts for the second new ball; time behind when the batting side is dismissed to end their first innings can be added to the clock for the second innings - the third umpire can keep an eye on it all.

There is no doubt that the second (and third, etc.) new ball is a major advantage for a fielding captain. Most fielding captains, in most situations, like to take the new ball quickly. Extra overs with the old ball usually means more overs for the spinners, just when a captain is looking to get his quicks back into the action - this in itself is likely to speed up the over-rate. Particularly on the first day this is a nuisance for the fielding captain, they have to bowl 90 overs in a day, so usually that would mean 10 overs in fading light at tired batsmen with the new ball, but if they’ve gone too slowly earlier, then they’ve got fewer overs with the new ball in those conditions.

With this playing condition, the advantage of going slow to make small changes to the field is off-set by the disadvantage of not having the new ball available as soon as possible. The spinners are more effective with the old ball than the quicks, and so, if their captain is slow, they’ll end up bowling more overs, which will help the over rate.

It’s a fair penalty and not one people are going to feel greatly wronged over. This is not something that requires a year-long feasibility study, it’s a small tweak to playing conditions. There may be some minor details to work out, but this is a fairly simple idea that will improve over-rates. I hope the ICC considers its implementation.

From Aniruddha Raje, United States

The on-field umpire must be the exclusive person to determine the process of decision-making © Getty Images

When a business invests in new technology to better sales, it does not introduce it as a "Sales Decisions Review System" and have its salesmen second-guessing themselves. Hospitals don't use technology to review a doctor's decisions. Banks don't invest in software to review a loan underwriter's decisions. All of them introduce technology as tools to empower their work force. They introduce technology as tools that enable salesmen, doctors and bankers to do their jobs better. To reduce errors. To make them better salesmen, doctors and bankers.

Technology is rarely introduced to review and then overturn a decision made by experts. Why then is cricket, where the umpire's decision is considered to be final, positioning and deploying technology as a "review" of the umpire's decisions? Much has been made of the BCCI's opposition to the UDRS, but all of it is due to its funding. Sachin Tendulkar and MS Dhoni, too, have spoken against it but their arguments miss what I think is fundamentally flawed about the UDRS. It isn't about the technology and the need for it to be foolproof. It’s about empowering the on-field umpire with the data; images, sounds, heat patterns, etc; available to "off-field" umpires and millions of viewers and then allowing him to make a decision.

The process of challenge followed by a referral to an "off-field" umpire and a final decision by the "off-field" umpire undermines the authority of the on-field umpire. It’s also distasteful. If players are expected to regard the on-field umpire as the ultimate authority, then the on-field umpire needs to always be in complete control of the game and make the big decisions. And if he needs data captured by the tools; hot spot, ball tracker, snick-o-meter, etc, he needs to be provided access to it. When a fielding side appeals, the on-field umpire should be the exclusive person to determine the process of decision-making, the tools to involve or not involve, and ultimately deliver the decision.

If the players do not like the decision; there should be no challenges, no one else to go to. The problem now becomes how to instantly deploy the data to the on-field umpire. How difficult can that be? Today I get all the data on my iPhone thousands of miles away. The umpire is only a few yards from where the data is located. The underlying technologies in the UDRS will likely evolve to be more accurate but the process of delivery of decisions is flawed. That process needed to protect the on-field umpire’s authority and it's failed in that regard.

From Adam Wakefield, Australia

	Jacques Kallis has matched Graeme Pollock's achievements © AFP

Cricket, as a sport, has a habit of indulging itself in its own legend. Players are elevated above mere mortal status to something divine, something Bradmanesque as it were, where their influence on the game goes way beyond the boundary ropes of their personal selves.

South Africa is no stranger to such musings. One name especially stands out as the man who inspired those in South Africa as Tendulkar does today in India. Graeme Pollock is his name, a player recognised internationally as one of the best batsmen to ever play the game. He had the second highest Test average (of those who had scored more than 2000 Test runs). He used to hold the record for the highest score by a South African and is part of the Pollock dynasty that has given so much to the South African cause over the years.

Today, South Africa has yet another cricketer who should be classed in Pollock's elite company. Jacques Kallis has never felt the full affection of the South African public, for reasons ranging from being perceived as aloof at the crease to batting to slowly. For one reason or another, Kallis never received the praise that he deserved, and only now, as the twilight of his career approaches, are South Africans waking up to how good he really is, and how much a hole he is going to leave in their national side when he eventually hangs up his well worn boots.

Kallis made his debut when Allan Donald and Shaun Pollock were still figuring out how best to work together, Hansie Cronje was captain and Dave Richardson wicketkeeper. He is a physical embodiment of South Africa's cricket history after re-admission, just by being there most of the time in person. He, along with Mark Boucher, are the last of that generation of cricketers in the 1990s who were tasked with forging South Africa's image in the world game.

Greatness is always difficult if not near impossible to see at the passing moment. In the present, we lack the foresight which allows us to put an individual’s achievements in context. Once put in context however, and weighed against the deeds of his or her peers, only then is it plausible to label a player 'a great'. Kallis' achievements are so immense, and his way of playing the game so pure (technically speaking), that along with Tendulkar and Ponting, will be canonized as a saint of the modern game, a man who batted in a way which survived the Test of time.

The reasons Kallis and Tendulkar have been able to continue excelling to a level even past most of their younger contemporaries is because their techniques allow them to do so. Even when they have struggled, as both have done at times in their distinguished careers, their technique has gotten them through. The fact Tendulkar and Kallis were the leading run getters in the recently concluded series between their two sides, in conditions toda in the most part, underlines this fact.

Kallis has also disproved the old adage that he bats at too slow a pace. He recently scored his quickest Test century, and has upped his strike rate in the five-day format significantly. And being selfish? If it weren't for his efforts in Cape Town, South Africa would have lost the series. Harbhajan Singh, known as a fiery character but not one to shy away from expressing himself, told media before the final day in Cape Town that he hadn't seen many bat like Kallis did that day. King Kallis, as he is known at Newlands, put on a batting masterclass which will be seen as one of his better Test innings.

He further sealed his reputation by scoring his maiden double-hundred at Centurion, an achievement which in some weird way finally ensures his transition from very good to great. When Jacques Kallis comes to the crease, South Africa breathes a sigh of relief. He has been the ultimate fire-fighter, assassin and strangler for them for 15 years, and he still has a couple more seasons in his body. But when he does eventually decide to go, at the moment he walks off Newlands (it will be there) for that final time, that is when we will feel his absence, a feeling as powerful as sadness, happiness and fear. By George we are going to miss him. He has earned our affections hundreds of times over, and is finally getting the admiration he deserves.

Graeme Pollock and Jacques Kallis are the greatest cricketers South Africa has ever produced. It's simple as that.

From Neeraj Narayanan, India

The greatest Indian No.3 © AFP

Once upon a time, much before Cricinfo became essential to our lives, there was a delightful magazine for all us cricket lovers known as the Sportstar. It was’94 or ’95, two years since the game had surged through my veins and made me its seduced captive. Since my neighbourhood only had older bullies who never let me bat or bowl, right after I’d reach home from school, I would run to the porch as soon as I was done with the pesky business of lunch.

Holding my bat with the right hand, I’d throw a ball onto the wall with the left, and before it ricocheted off the wall and reached me, I would swiftly grasp the bat with both hands and launch into a drive through covers, rather two broken cactus pots. That day, the first time I missed a shot, I declared Manoj Prabhakar clean bowled by Craig Mcdermott. But instead of letting in Sanjay Manjrekar to bat next at three, I carefully scribbled a relatively obscure name, "Rahul Dravid", in my notebook scorecard.

That week’s Sportstar edition had a picture of the same man as one of the top run-getters in the Ranji circuit. An 11-year old’s intuition told me that he would play for India one day, and mostly I put him at three because he looked handsome in the photograph. He was frowning because the sun hit his face, but he still looked handsome. Sixteen years later, the same man stood in Centurion, with 12,000 international Test runs to his name.

The next day, however, every single newspaper in India only chose to speak about Sachin Tendulkar’s ton, how he missed his father still, how he went for coaching to Shivaji Park, and a hundred other anecdotes that every Tendulkar lover knows by heart. The third-highest run-scorer in Tests, the man who would arguably have been India’s greatest bat if not for the boy the whole country was busy lauding, did not even have a mention. Dravid’s greatness, however, is not limited to his runs. It is a potpourri of character, hard work and a genuinely good heart.

A month earlier, the two same men stood at either end of the pitch, two runs away from sealing a 2-0 scoreline against the visiting Australians. For years, the single largest complaint against Tendulkar, unfair as it is, has been his apparent inability to be there at the end and take India to victory. An over before, we were all glued to our sets and wondered whether he would finish it off with a six to silence his detractors, if he would uproot a stump and run with it like a child when we won, and a million other things.

But now Dravid was on strike and would, of course, finish it off himself. Just like he did seven years back, hitting that trademark square-cut boundary to give India their first victory in Australia in 22 years. But we all want Tendulkar to do everything, don’t we? As we sat there watching Mitchell Johnson bowl to Rahul, we prayed he leave every ball alone and strangely he did. The next over Tendulkar won the match for India, took off his helmet, raised both his hands to exult with uncharacteristic emotion, and smiled.

We will never know if Dravid did so intentionally, letting his more-celebrated team-mate have his moment, but it is a tribute to his character and image that we are inclined to believe so. If intentional, it was a selfless act, by a man who has been renowned for the same (remember donning the keeper’s gloves so that India could play both Yuvraj Singh and Mohammad Kaif?), and it shamed us for wanting Tendulkar to score those runs.

One day Dravid will retire, but he will take away with him a bit of what is left of the gentlemanliness that the game tries to still portray as its unique element. One day Dravid will retire but he will take away with him that beautiful square cut - wrists as supple and turning like Zorro’s, toes rising sweetly in sync with the pace of the approaching ball, standing perfectly tall, majestic and most importantly in control, before whacking the cherry disdainfully through backward point.

When Dravid retires, the nation will lose the greatest No.3 to have ever graced it, and writers will mourn saying that the media never gave him his due. But don’t blame the media, for grace will never overcome the charms of boyish appeal or even spitting fire, traits his best mates Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly so regularly exhibited in that enviable Indian middle order. But when Dravid retires, that middle order and also the Indian XI will lose its most handsome face, something that we all wrongly assumed was handed over by God, but in truth, which came about by the virtues he imbibed in his soul as he grew up.

From Imran Coomaraswamy, United Kingdom

Dale Steyn is on his way to becoming the fastest bowler to get to 250 wickets in Tests © AFP

Is Dale Steyn getting the recognition he deserves? Yes, most cricket-lovers around the world know that he is a world-class bowler, and yes, a fair number are probably aware that he has sat atop the ICC Test bowling rankings for a little while now, but has the cricket world really taken note of quite how razor-sharp Steyn is?

The list of the fastest men to reach 250 Test wickets reads like a roll call of post-war bowling greats. Fred Trueman reached the mark in 56 Tests, while Ian Botham, Imran Khan, Shane Warne, Anil Kumble and Glenn McGrath all took 55. Just ahead of that group come Richard Hadlee and Malcolm Marshall (53 Tests), Waqar Younis and Muttiah Muralitharan (51 Tests) and then Allan Donald (50 Tests). The only man to have reached 250 wickets in fewer than 50 Tests is Dennis Lillee. By the end of the fractious Melbourne Test of February 1981 (Lillee’s 48th), he had accumulated 251 wickets at an average of 23.37 and a strike rate of 50.9. If we take Lillee as the gold standard for fast bowling, then both statistically and technically, Steyn measures up pretty well.

Were he to maintain his current form, Steyn would slot into the list of the fastest men to 250 wickets close to the very top. Before the start of the Cape Town Test, he had taken 232 wickets in 45 Tests at an average of 23.31 and an incredible strike rate of 39.7 (better even than Waqar’s 40.4 at the corresponding point of his career). What’s more, Steyn has been collecting his wickets at a time when batting averages have crept ever higher and other top-notch seamers have conceded more than 30 runs per wicket.

Amid the talk these days about “bowling dry” to frustrate impatient modern batsmen, Steyn stands out as a genuinely attacking quick – a bowler very much in the Lillee mould. His primary weapon is a textbook 90mph outswinger, while he is also capable of extracting plenty of movement in the opposite direction off the seam. These deliveries are made all the more effective by the fact that despite lacking the natural splice-hitting bounce of a Curtly Ambrose or Morne Morkel, Steyn is adept at pinning batsmen to the crease with hostile, skiddy bouncers. If his mastery of reverse-swing is not quite at the level attained by Wasim Akram and Waqar, then it cannot be too far off. There have been several spells with the old ball in which Steyn has resembled a 2005-model Simon Jones.

Mention of Jones and indeed Lillee reminds one of the need to cross one’s fingers and toes that Steyn avoids the various types of injury that can so often disrupt or curtail a fast bowler’s career. If he stays healthy, the Steyn is well on course towards becoming an all-time great. Indeed, he has already produced some truly outstanding returns on slow sub-continental pitches, something Lillee never did. Steyn picked up five-fors in Colombo and Karachi before his 5 for 23 in Ahmedabad in 2008 consigned India to their worst home defeat for almost half a century. Of course he did even better in Nagpur last year, when his 7 for 51 (which included a spell of 5 for 3 in 22 balls) set up another innings victory over India, by then the world’s top-ranked side.

Just like Lillee, Steyn has thrived as the leader of his team’s attack. He may be rather more soft-spoken than his Australian predecessor off the pitch but is just as tenacious and aggressive on it. For a country boy from the Limpopo province, he has also shown remarkable confidence on the big stage, never more so than in the epochal 2008 Boxing Day Test at the MCG, when his 10 wickets and career-best 76 runs – just the type of gritty innings of which Lillee would have been proud – sealed Australia’s first home series defeat for 16 years.

Steyn was named the world’s leading Test cricketer in 2008, a year described by Graeme Smith as South African cricket’s greatest ever. This was followed by a relatively quiet year for him in 2009, but in 2010, he was right back in top form. Though Jimmy Anderson, Graeme Swann and Zaheer Khan all enjoyed the best years of their respective careers, when the calibre of batsmen dismissed is taken into account, it is Steyn who emerges ahead of the pack.

Right now, aged 27, Steyn is just as deadly as Lillee ever was. What remains for him to prove is that he can be just as dogged.

From Srinath S, India

The Ranji Trophy could learn a thing or two from the County Championship © Sportz Solutions

The points system followed in the Ranji Trophy is strikingly similar to the one in the Australian Sheffield Shield. A quick survey of the two domestic seasons so far shows why the latter is justified and the former isn’t. Out of the 19 matches in the Shield so far, 14 have produced outright victories, in contrast with 19 out of 54 in the Ranji Trophy. It is a case of appropriate conditions and pitches backing up the points system - one in which conditions will, more often than not, dictate terms as and when sides decide to while away time and force a draw.

While flat wickets are often blamed for a mundane domestic structure, one should also consider how changing the dynamics of the points system will go a long way in improving standards. The English county system is not a bad place to begin. It follows a more holistic methodology in evaluating teams’ performance, taking into account various possible scenarios. For instance, all scores above 400 are given five points, which means a batting powerhouse no longer has an incentive for piling on 750 runs, in which case they’re risking awarding the opponent with more points for picking up wickets. And what’s more, points for scoring runs are considered only in the first 110 overs. The system can be improved upon with bonuses for enforcing a follow-on.

The first-innings lead rule is to be blamed for the largely otiose nature of Indian first-class cricket. On flat decks, even in cases of evenly matched sides, misfortune in the toss is often compounded by four days of misery. In the county championship, a draw means three points each irrespective of who gets the first-innings lead. It is just a provision for weather delays and emergencies, not a cushion for teams to play out time and still get the points. Not long back, in the Shield, South Australia lost the toss and the first innings, but were still able to make up in the second innings, thanks to a wonderful spell of fast bowling. Introducing such a system might not be the panacea for a better first-class structure in India, but it might well be a pointer to remind players and associations alike, that they will no longer get away with killing time and serving up featherbeds. There’s the small matter of better crowds and television audience as well.

From Fergus Peace, Australia

The baton has passed in the stands as well © Getty Images

“Aussie! Aussie! Aussie!” Ben Hilfenhaus’ final nick behind was ten minutes in the past and the MCG was emptying rapidly. One spectator, wandering down the ramp towards the exit, let loose that most archetypal, uninventive Australian chant, a gesture of defiance to make up for his team’s submission. On the best days, the cry is met with instant, triumphant response. Here, seconds passed and the words subsided before another fan took up the cause and returned an equally solitary “Oi! Oi! Oi!” And his hopeful words too subsided, but not into silence, for there was no silence within a mile of the hallowed turf.

That was ensured by the Barmy Army, whose chants were not gestures of defiance but raucous expressions of triumph, the kind the Australian chant once signified. The baton has been passed, not only on the field but in the stands. It is unlikely to change any time soon. England’s crop of players hardly know what it is to lose to Australia: none have lost the Ashes more than once, five never at all. When they have lost – Headingley in 2009, Perth this year – it has been because England played atrociously and Australia lifted their game.

There is only one dominant team, and it can be seen in the way they carry themselves. Graeme Swann, even when he has been mandated to bowl flat and fast and hold up an end, always walks with a strut and a glimmer in his eye; it is coming. Tim Bresnan, regarded by most Australians as little more than an honest toiler, turns at his mark not in fear of being crashed to the cover boundary, as did Sajid Mahmood, James Anderson and even Matthew Hoggard last tour, but eagerly anticipating the next step in his plan. Chris Tremlett, delivering a series of gems and beating the edge with regularity that can easily frustrate a bowler, smiles and in spite of his professed gentleness enjoys, or at least appreciates, the torment he is giving. Matt Prior thinks everything is out. These are signs of a team used to beating Australia and not looking to the heavens for thanks.

Meanwhile, Mitchell Johnson seems to hope for a wicket rather than expecting one, and not without reason. Steven Smith bowled a good ball during the final session of day two in Melbourne, pitching on middle and leg, turning and bouncing and drawing a cautious defensive prod. What was needed was another twenty such deliveries to induce a mistake; what came was a half-tracker, pummeled to the midwicket boundary. But this crunching boundary, unlike the forward-defensive, went in the air – comfortably wide of the fieldsman, but enough to encourage Smith to bowl similarly next delivery, with similar results. Hilfenhaus avoids this impetuousness but his patience is more resigned than plotting, having accepted that he is likely to bend at least ninety deliveries a day away from the right-hander to be comfortably left, no damage done.

Enough has been written about the failings of the Australian team and the strengths of the English one. In Perth in 2006, when Geraint Jones emerged on a pair, the Barmy Army – never deniers of reality – sang out Living on a Prayer. Late on day three in Melbourne, the scoreboard showing that six Australian wickets had already tumbled, the same song rang from the Army’s ranks, this time as an offering to their vanquished opponents. After so many years of pain, they are enjoying it. And Australia seems to have been almost as successful at forgetting its own greatness as England has been at forgetting the lows they sank too.

Two local members of the crowd, discussing the parlous state of the batting order, offered this: “Apart from Hussey, and maybe Watson, there’s nobody else in that line-up who can score runs.” “Exactly. Although somebody the other day was talking about Ponting, I think?” Walking down from the MCG in a throng of Australian fans, there is no more talk of the cricket, past or present. A boy attempts soccer tricks with a plastic bottle on the footpath. As they approach the train station, a young man asks his friends, “Where to next?” He is not discussing the cricket, but he could be. Where to, indeed. And in a moment of silence, from inside the ground the Barmy Army can still be heard.

From Josh Barnes, Australia

Don't give up the reins to 'Pup' just yet © Getty Images

While many people voice their determined opinion about how Ricky Ponting should step down from captaincy, from cricket altogether and Swisse Vitamins commercials, I thought it would be fair for somebody to stick up for the great battler, and against better advice I decided to take on the task. Ponting can remain the Australian Test captain and an integral accumulator of runs. Just by giving up a couple of the things that makes him so great.

ODI cricket: Firstly, Ponting might need to step away from one of his favourite past times: pulling medium-pacers for six in coloured clothing. Following the World Cup (where Super Rick will attempt to win his fourth consecutive World Cup, third as captain) he should be told that reducing his workload may be overly beneficial. Stepping down from ODIs will keep him to Test matches only and allow him to focus on returning to powerful form. Although he remains one of the greatest batsmen to ever don the colours, ODIs must go.

Move down the order : While his pride will already be dented by being told ODIs were finished, Ricky Thomas will have to move down to No. 4 or 5. Facing the new ball is no longer his game, being successful in the middle order is. Ponting has averaged beyond 58 at No. 3 for almost ten years, yet he is obviously moving along in age and reflexes, so holding down the middle order while a younger member of the team takes over No. 3 (or even Shane Watson) is the right move to make.

Stay as captain: Australian cricket has finally made its way to the great, inevitable fork in the road. It can take that beautiful glorious road of return towards the rainbow or glory, or the deadly, dark and dangerous road towards disaster and mediocrity. Australia needs the experience and smarts of Ponting, at least until Michael Clarke grows up and proves himself, or a better replacement is found. Now is not the time to make drastic action to remove the captain, it is time for security and solidity. Panic doesn't help anybody. Ponting is Australia's second greatest batsman and deserves to be treated with respect. But if he wants to retain his position in international cricket, he needs to make a couple of changes. Following these changes we will return to the glorious days of the giant pull shot, the brilliant straight drive and the celebratory bat raise. Or, at least, less sleepless nights.