Ponting the growing shadow over Waugh

Australia's heir apparent is now ready for the succession. Stephen Brenkley speaks to him

The new captain of Australia will be Ricky Ponting. This is a slightly premature announcement but not by much. A couple of defeats, a handful of low scores, at most a few months, are all that separate Ponting from the greatest public office in his country and his heart's desire. He is close enough to touch it now.

"I haven't thought about it at all," he said. "I didn't think much about the one-day captaincy before that came round. There would be more responsibility, it would be a harder job, no doubt about that. It's a bigger job than Prime Minister in Australia, but I think I'd be ready for it."

It may be true that Ponting has not thought about it because Australia's Test team already have a captain in Steve Waugh who has led the team to 29 victories in 40 Test matches. But he has dreamed about it all right, probably from the moment he signed his first bat sponsorship as a 13-year-old batting wunderkind. "I think it's everyone's ambition to do it one day," he said. "I've always thought of myself as a leader around the group and I've always tried to be a leader whether it be on the training track or on the field, the one with a bit of voice, a smile, a bit of hustle, trying to lead by example that way."

Thoughts, if not Ponting's, are turning to the succession because Waugh had a ropey run of scores recently. Last winter he made 324 runs in nine matches and the vultures were circling when he led the team in the recent three-match series against Pakistan.

In the first two games, he failed. Pont-ing's time was near. Characteristically, Waugh made a century in the Third Test to hold on to his office. But another poor run, and not necessarily a long one at the age of 37, would see him off. Defeat in the first match or two to England would do likewise. The vultures are only napping and they look distinctly like the Australian selectors. Whatever happens, Waugh will surely give it away, as they say in Australia, at the end of the Ashes.

Ponting is in prime form. He scored two hundreds against Pakistan and he has performed creditably since he assumed the one-day captaincy last winter, Waugh having been dispatched as soon as Australia failed to make the finals of their home one-day triangular series.

He was not always the natural heir. In his early days in the side he was a bit of a lad. A bit of a lad, of course, is what he was – 20, wet behind the ears, a small- towner from Tasmania and out for a good time. There was an incident outside a nightclub in Calcutta, he was on the receiving end of a punch in a Sydney late-night bar. He was fined, banned and, after admitting he had a problem with holding his drink, told to seek counselling. But it was no more than a young man's larks.

"There are huge traps for young blokes coming into this sort of scene and I know what they are," he said. "I think from my experiences I could actually help to give a bit of advice. I was growing up while I was playing for Australia. I was just a boy from Tasi [Tasmania].

"At the time you don't realise what a high profile you have and how careful you have to be in the big world outside. I knew when I'd done something I'd let myself down and the team down. It wakes you up pretty quickly when they take away, if only for a short time, your opportunity to play for Australia, which is always all I'd ever wanted to do."

Ponting recognises the changes within himself. He was married earlier this year – "ever since I've met my wife I think I've been a different person" – and at 28 is at his peak. Not, happily, that he has divested himself completely of his old clothes.

Ponting's nickname in the game is Punter and it is not because he has a deep love for piloting flat-bottomed boats. He and Mark Waugh used to have a few trotting horses and Ponting has 20 greyhounds in training. "Struggling a bit at the moment," he said.

He is a joy to watch as a batsman, not as aesthetically pleasing as his chum Mark Waugh, but a dashing driver who meets the ball early. He is better against speed than spin. His inconsistency at Test level is still a concern to him largely because he does not understand it. He once had three consecutive ducks and 18 months later had three in four innings, breaking the sequence only with an innings of six. In England last summer he was a millionaire in the one-day tournament – "the best I've ever played" – but in the Test series which followed hardly registered in the first three matches before making a century.

If this seems to be concentrating needlessly on the occasional shortcomings of a batsman who averages 47.49 in Test cricket (and 41.20 in one-dayers) he knows the figure should be nearer 60. "Inconsistency has plagued me right from when I first started," he said. "Things can turn round quickly but it does annoy me and I wish I knew the reasons.

"The more I practise the worse I get. I'm better off packing up the gear and forgetting about it if I can, not going to the nets and hitting a thousand balls. Maybe just sitting back and thinking about it helps rather than doing anything physically because often it's nothing technical, it's your frame of mind." Ponting, likeable and easy-going, is probably not a profound thinker about the game but he has an instinct for it. That is certainly the most noticeable trait he will bring to the captaincy.

"You learnt things over the years that you don't necessarily know you've learned. They just go into your head. But I'll consult with the senior guys as well. But the good thing about Australian cricket is that we've had a culture of aggressive, hard cricket. It's something I don't want to change. I think we play at our best that way. We'll be laughing and smiling out in the field more than the other way but I'll let the guys know if I think they're letting the team down." It all sounds dreadful for England's future.