Is it curtains for punter Ponting? Don't bet on it

Ponting has never beenunder sustained pressure for a long time - which is what has happened this year without Warne, McGrath, Langer, Martyn - and now Gilly. It will be a challenge for him to come back now.

Yes england does rely heavily on people like kevin, vaughn and flintoff, and sri lanka rely heavily on sangakara, murali, vass and mahela, but india doesnt just rely one two or three players. India has teh strongest batting line up in the world, and probaly one of teh strongest ever, with sehwag averaging 53, with a strike rate of the 3rd highest ever of 80, then dravid who is the best techniqual batsmen in the world, averaging 55, then the greatest batsmen after bradmen ever, sachin averaging 56, with a strike rate of 63, then you have ganguly one of the best players of spin, averaging 43 and a strike rate of 61, then laxman, who has tormented the aussies with a average of 45 and strike rate of 58. then the bowlers contain anil kumble who has 600 wickets, then one of the best left arm bowlers at the moment being zaheer khan, then the secong best off spinner at the moment being harbajan and then ishant sharma, who is already being compared to glen mgrath. so you have 9 match winners. Plus symonds is very overated like dhoni

Tell me why india with all this talent only been an very average side for so many years

India is the second best test team in the world, ICC rankings. Moreover they have only lost two test series in the last 20 years. India since the last 10 years has always had a good batting lineup, However the batting really started to get better with the inculsion of sehwag, and batsmen like laxman, ganguly and dravid,started to blossom really well in the last 6-8 years, and sachin has been imperious throughout his whole carer, and finally india has found a fairly good wicketkepper batsmen, plus they can get quiet a few runs down the order, from people like pathan, kuble and harbajan. The reason why india has started winning a lot more matches away, especially the last 3-5, is because of the quality fast swing bolwers coming up, like zaheer, RP Singh, sreesanth, sharma and pathan.

I will grant you that India is a very good side, but lets be honest, they are only ranked number two because they cooked up a sub standard pitch to level the series with South Africa. This resulted in a warning. In reality, South Africa were stronger in the series.

Well india was stronger than south africa on the first test, then south africa bashed them in the second, then india bashed south africa in the third, so its actually 2:1 in favour of india being stronger than south africa. plus our two strike bowlers sharma and zaheer didnt play, so we had a second string attack, and sachin was injured. Moreover south africa are only third in the ICC rankings, and look at the teams they beat aswell over the last year, bangladeh away, who are shite, new zealand home who are shite, west indies home who are shite, and pakistan away are okay, and lol, south africa lost too west indies at home, now that is shite. Look at indias test record over the last year, they beat england in england, they beat pakistan, they won against west indies in west indies, they should of won against australia, if it wasnt for weird and bizzara umpire decisions ect... plus on the pitch, doesnt south africa always produce a green swinging pitch, you just condricted yourself. However south africa overall is a better one day side than inida, especially now ganguly, dravid and sehwag dont get a wrecking, dhoni wants to be bring in new young players, like uttapa, lol. india now rely heavily on sachin to win the match in one dayers, like in the mid 90s

Producing a pitch to suite home conditions is one thing. Preparing a sub standard pitch is another. India should have won in Australia just as South Africa should have won in India. Umpiring decisions go against most teams, so this can hardly be a reason for the lost. To be honest, notwithstanding the ratings. I think SA and India are both pretty evenly matched. The series should have been a 5 match one to determine the true winner. The positive here, is the Aussies have eventually got a challenge to their dominence.

A South africa vs India tests series, in terms of level of cricket played, is the third biggest series in the world, but obviously you could tell that the whole series was labeled as a filler, because of the IPL. Moreover, i would like to say, anil kumble did a stupid decision on batting first on that green pitch in the second match, was he blind when he was looking at the pitch. Anyway take a look at the sydney umpire mistakes, and other test aswell, about 95% of bad umpiring, and there was a lot, were done to the indians. Australians, will do anything to win a match, but you need baddies, lol, to make the sport that much more interesting

yea your right waka cocka you do need baddies just like you need morons like yourself, india only have themselves to blame they were pathetic in the first test they should have been better prepared and competed from the first ball.