John Polack, CricInfo: Welcome to Launceston, from where we're privileged to say that we have Australian batsman Ricky Ponting sitting in with us in the latest in this series of interviews with big names in the game. Ricky: all of us at CricInfo feel privileged to have you with us today; thanks very much for joining us.

Ricky Ponting: No worries. My privilege to be here.

CricInfo:: I think the question obviously first of all on everyone's lips is: how's the recovery going from your much publicised ankle injury. We have heard that you should be ok to play against South Africa in the three match one-day series in Melbourne (in August); is that basically still looking on track and how's the status of the recovery generally? (Thanks: Torina Halford, Nainil Patel, Samantha Clark, Amy, Stephanie, Zubair Bin Yusuf, Manikandan, Vicky Avanash, V Jayanth, Praveen Kumar, Naaznin Bandali, Steve Harris)

Ponting: Yes, that's my goal at the moment - to be right for those games in Melbourne in August. The recovery is coming along well. I've seen the surgeon only a couple of weeks ago and he was really really happy with the way things have come along in the two months; everything is on track and it's just up to me now to do a fair bit of hard work and get back in the gym and strengthen it up again and make sure it does come up 100% for the Super Challenge 2000 games.

CricInfo: It has been a fairly long time (about four months in fact) since it happened. Can we maybe pry a little bit and get a feel for what you've been doing during that time? Has it been exclusively concentration on the recovery or have you been able to get away and do some other things? (Blair Bishop, Rajesh Rengarajan, Vinay, Will L)

Ponting: There's been a little bit of relaxation and a bit of time for me away from just concentrating on the injury. Obviously at the start (just after the operation), I had to take it easy for a while and I was on crutches for a couple of months - basically just couch-bound. I was actually lying back on the couch watching the guys perform over in New Zealand and in South Africa as well. The first half of that four months was just recovery and relaxing and waiting for things to get a little bit better so I could start running around on it and doing some swimming and things like that. It's been about the last month that I've been able to start pushing it along a little bit and really start concentrating on the fitness side of things and really getting the ankle right again.

CricInfo: And just how agonising does that make it - the fact that you've got a situation where you're forced to sit down and actually watch the guys play? It must make the whole thing even more agonising I guess? (John Attygalle, Ravi Verma, Majid Ahmed, Awais Hanif, Quintin Knell, Rebecca Chilton)

Ponting: Yeah, that was tough - especially right at the start when the guys first went to New Zealand. There was a one-day record that the guys have now broken and also the Test match record that they've equalled as well. It certainly would have been nice to have been a part of that. But I realised after the first couple of games that it was going to be a long time before I got back into the side and there wasn't much I could do about it. So I've just been really focused lately on making sure that the ankle comes right.

CricInfo: And, in some ways, has the fact that it has been an enforced lay-off meant that you've maybe had a chance that you wouldn't have otherwise had to actually sit back and assess where your career is at? You've really had an absolutely sparkling last twelve months; because you guys are playing so much these days, is it a welcome thing in a sense that you can actually stop and think "well, here I am, I've come this far and this is what I want to do for the next two or three years"?

Ponting: I suppose I would have had that break anyway. We had a long break anyway after the South African games. So there has been a great opportunity for everyone to get back home and recharge the batteries and have a think about where they're at with their careers. It just so happens that I might have a couple of months longer than the rest of the guys. It certainly has been good; I really have enjoyed this little bit of a break as I'm sure all the other guys have as well. We've been up and fairly busy for the last eighteen months and the longest break we had was I think a month off after the World Cup win. So it has been a hard eighteen months and I'm sure all the guys would be enjoying the break now.

CricInfo: Although you've got guys like Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne and Justin (Langer) who are over in England playing county cricket. What do you other guys think of them playing so much?

Ponting: It's obviously hard for them. It has got to be very tough and very demanding playing a season of county cricket on top of what we've just had over the last eighteen months. It has got to be very tough. But I'm sure they'll look after themselves well. We do a lot of recovery work whenever we can now in the Australian side and I'm sure that they'll be doing all that stuff over in England as well and making sure they come up as fresh as they can for every game over there. Hopefully, they can come up nice and fresh for the start of our season back here in Australia as well.

CricInfo: Do you permit yourself the opportunity - if we're talking about sitting back and thinking about things - to reflect maybe upon one or two highlights in your career as well? A lot of guys like to reflect on one or two things that they've achieved; do you get the chance to do that yourself at all and, if so, what would they be? (Angel Swanton, Matt Edwards, Allan Taylor)

Ponting: I have actually done that a little bit this time. Because I had the two months just basically lying on the couch and not doing anything, I took the opportunity to ring up the (Australian) Cricket Board and ask if I could have some of last season's tapes sent down. That was just so I could have a little bit of a look and try and identify what I was doing right or what I was doing wrong. It has been good to sit back and watch basically the entirety of three or four Test innings and watch how I played and pick up the good things and the bad things as well.

CricInfo: Do you think these days that you're maybe starved of some opportunities at the Test level? Batting at number six seems an incredibly difficult thing because you're either coming in with the side very well set anyway or four wickets down for a relatively small score and it doesn't often tend to be something in between. Do you ever get frustrated by that at all? (Jagadish, Henry Arkwright)

Ponting: Not really, no. The games that I've tended to do well in so far batting at number six have been the times when we've been in a little bit of trouble. I do enjoy batting against the new ball (the newer ball rather than coming in against the older ball), I like the ball coming on to the bat. Especially last year, the times that I made big runs were the times when we were four down for not many. I enjoy that challenge a lot more than having to sit around too long and wait to go in when we're 4/300 or something like that. I've always batted fairly high up in the order. I've always batted at #3 for Australia in the one-day games and at #4 for Tassie in all my career there as well. So I've never been one who has had to sit around and wait too long to go in and bat and I suppose that does take a little bit of getting used to.

CricInfo: One thing which came across very strongly in the huge number of emails that we received in the lead-up to the interview was just how much people enjoy your work in the field and how you acquit yourself in the field. How much of your sensational fielding prowess would you say is the result of natural ability and how much is it the result of hard work? And if, say, a youngster walked up to you tomorrow and asked how he becomes a good - or a better - fieldsman, what would be the two or three things you'd say to him? (Rajiv, Ranjit Mohan, Dave Frith, Ammar Hakim, Aayush Kumar, Srikara, Sudhir Joshi, Abhijeet Deshpande)

Ponting: I think it's probably about a 50-50 split between natural ability and hard work. I've always been a fairly good athlete that's been a decent fielder but it hasn't really been until the last two or three years that I've been given the opportunity to field in the positions that I like for fielding. When I first came into the one-day side, I was probably the youngest bloke in the side and always had a pretty strong throwing arm, and so I therefore used to be almost the first one to go out on to the boundary after fifteen overs were up. Since Steve Waugh and Shane Warne have been in charge, I've always been the guy who has probably been about the last one to go out of the circle. Now I always stay in the circle for the entire fifty overs and try to create a little bit of pressure there. A lot of it has come down to opportunity I think. I've had a lot more opportunities the last three or four years; I've worked very hard on my fielding as all of the guys do in the Australian side. I've been a bit lucky I suppose and hit the stumps a few times and taken a few catches here and there.

CricInfo: And what would be those one or two favourite positions? Basically anything inside the circle?

Ponting: Backward point, really. I always start there with the new ball and tend to stay in that position as well for the run shot down to third man later on in the innings. I tend to be able to save a few runs there and, as I said, I've been lucky enough to hit the stumps a few times and create a few run outs from that position as well. I also field at mid wicket a lot for 'Warnie' and the other spin bowlers; they tend to think that the majority of their balls are looking to be hit in that area so they tend to have me around that area somewhere for when the spinners are on. So backward point and mid wicket are probably my two favourites.

CricInfo: It's probably an unfair question in a sense (and obviously we don't want you to broach selection policies too specifically) but do you think being a Tasmanian and coming from a small state like Tasmania has been a help or a hindrance? Because it's a small state, there's theoretically a smaller number of elite players to begin with - so maybe it's easier to be recognised when you're very young - but then a lot of people say that it's a lot harder to make the really elite level from here. Do you think it has been a help or a hindrance or a bit of both? (Sam Leitch, Mark Cross)

Ponting: It certainly hasn't been a hindrance to my career I don't think. I came into first class cricket at a fairly young age (17 I think it might have been when I debuted for Tasmania) and obviously that's a bit of a help - to get into first class cricket at as young an age as you can is obviously a help and you can learn about the game a lot quicker that way …

CricInfo: … you were always earmarked down here as being an outstanding junior even from long before that, weren't you?

Ponting: Yeah. I suppose I was, yeah. You've still got to keep doing the work week in, week out I suppose. I went to the (Australian) Cricket Academy for two years and learnt a lot there under Rod Marsh and then things just went from there. I was fairly successful in the first couple of years of first class cricket for Tassie and then I think it was after my third season of Shield cricket that I was selected to go on my first tour to New Zealand and West Indies. So things happened fairly quickly for me and I don't think there's ever been a hindrance as far as I'm concerned about coming from Tasmania.

CricInfo: For someone still at a pretty young age, you've achieved a heck of lot in the game. You've been part of a winning World Cup team; Ashes successes; a Border-Gavaskar Trophy win; the retention of the Frank Worrell Trophy … the list just goes on and on. Obviously international cricket is a huge step up from state cricket but how strong an ambition would the chance to play in a Sheffield Shield/Pura Milk or Mercantile Mutual Cup winning team with Tasmania be? (Daniel Brettig)

Ponting: Very very high. That's something that I think not only myself but the rest of the guys down here in Tassie think about all the time. We've worked very hard over the last five or six years and built up a team that has been a lot more competitive than it was in the few years before that. Actually, the last couple of years, our performances haven't been as good but for Tassie to have made two Shield Finals in the last six or seven years I think has been a very good effort. Unfortunately, we haven't won one yet but I know the guys are all heading in the same direction - they want to be successful and they want to be part of a successful Tasmanian team. That's certainly one thing I'd like to achieve before my career is over.

CricInfo: I guess one of the benefits in a sense of your layoff (if there have been all that many) has been the fact that you've been able to maybe observe the development of the match fixing scandal from a distance. Understandably, it was a pretty difficult task for the guys in South Africa to maintain concentration and enthusiasm with what was going on around them; what's your view (obviously without wanting to push you too far) of what has happened and have you been shocked by what's happened? (Rana Zeshan, Zulfi Shah, John Lee, Ragavan, S Ramakrishnan, Prabal, Asad Zafar, Tariq Juman-Yassin)

Ponting: I've been very shocked, yes. Especially at the number of names that keep coming out all the time. And especially someone like Hansie Cronje; when that first broke, I was very very surprised - just as I'm sure that not only the rest of Australian side but the rest of the South African side would have been as well. It's very disappointing for the game of cricket and, to tell you the truth, although I've had the chance to be able to look at it and read it in the papers every day, I haven't worried about it too much at all. Re a lot of the stuff that is floating around now, we don't know how much of it is true so I'm just going to sit back and wait until the full inquiries are over and done with and find out what comes from those inquiries. It has been very damaging to the game - there is no doubt about that. And, the sooner that it can get cleaned up and we can get back out there and start playing some good attractive cricket again that the fans want to see, the better.

CricInfo: And talking of fans: as one of the world's elite players, how worried are you about the possibility that interest in cricket generally and maybe international attendances might decline as a result of what's happened? Does that concern you in any sense at all? (Brendon Hyndman,Vijay Chandel, K Sreenath, Masroor Khan)

Ponting: It does, yeah. I'm sure that it concerns everyone that's involved in international cricket because it certainly is a big issue.

CricInfo: As a contracted national player, it's obviously very difficult for you to criticise scheduling but would you - or is it possible at all - to sympathise with the view that's been around the place in a few circles lately that maybe there is just too much one-day international cricket played? (Dominic, Tom Stephens)

Ponting: I think it's probably understandable that a lot of people have come out and said there is a little bit too much now. Especially with some of the smaller tournaments that you have to travel a long way to play. A perfect example was the last one in South Africa. It was mentioned that, when Stephen (Waugh) was asked if it was just one series too many, I think he ended up coming out and saying "No, I think it was three or four series too many" for the year. There is just so much one-day cricket going on now that - and it's just a lot of these little tournaments as well where you only play three or four games - that some aren't really much benefit to anyone really. But that's what we get paid for - and we do enjoy playing cricket and the more cricket we play, the better it is for us. And the more that we can get out there and put the game of cricket on display, obviously the better it is for everyone. Saying there has been a little bit too much over the last eighteen months is probably a fair thing to say but I'm sure all the guys would probably have it no other way.

CricInfo: We might move away from that fairly unpleasant area and ask you maybe a more pleasant question - which is: the question on everyone's lips when they talk about the success that Australia has had over the last year/two years is what you put that down to as a key part of the squad? Is it sheer professionalism, sheer preparation, sheer talent, the strength of the domestic structure, or is it perhaps a combination of all those things? (Thomas Maydon, Ranjit Godbole, Tarun, Senthil Kalaimani, Suhas, Ananth Durai, David McNally)

Ponting: I think it is definitely a combination of all of those things that you've just mentioned. We really have prided ourselves on our professionalism and the way we go about things and how hard we work together as a group. The squad that we've got together now as well obviously has a lot of natural talent. I think you've seen that with the guys that have come into the side who have just slipped in straight away without anyone really recognising. The guys like Adam Gilchrist, Brett Lee, Andrew Symonds and even Damien Martyn last year had a fantastic year. Those guys have come into the game and have been ready for international cricket and that doesn't happen very often. I think that says a lot about the professionalism of our side and the structure of cricket in Australia. When you can come into international cricket and perform straight away is very rare. For those guys to be able to do that is a fantastic effort.

CricInfo: And then a lot of people too point to the fact that, for every one of Andrew Symonds and Damien Martyn and Brett Lee, there are probably another two or three at state level who could walk in just as easily as well.

Ponting: That's right. There have been guys like Stuart Law and Darren Lehmann that have really just been overlooked in the last few years and those guys are fantastic cricketers. They would probably walk into any other side in the world really. It is a testament to how good and how strong Australian cricket is at the moment.

CricInfo: And from which countries do you see the major challengers emerging over the next few years? There are a few sides around the place that are struggling at the moment obviously. Who do you regard as being at the top of the tree with you at the moment? (Gary Kent, Chandan Sukul, Tatiana)

Ponting: South Africa, probably over the last three or four years, have been our main rivals. Both in Test cricket and one-day cricket, we've played some sensational games against them recently. We liken them a lot to the way we play. They're fairly tough sort of characters and they've obviously got a number of class players as well. The way they play the game is very similar to the way we play the game. I think they've become our main rival. There are sides like Pakistan and India too and you never know what they're going to do; they're obviously always very hard to beat over there. We've got another tour to India coming up next year and that's another challenge of ours - to be able to win more consistently on the sub-continent so we'll be gearing ourselves for that one and hopefully we'll have a big tour over there.

CricInfo: OK, Ricky, on that note we might say thanks again and we'll wish you success on a number of fronts. First of all, with the recovery, we hope that continues to go well and that we do see you out there under the roof at the Colonial Stadium in August; we also hope you have an enjoyable trip to the US Open, the golf championships to which you're going with Greg Blewett in a few days' time we gather; and we hope to see you back in terrific form with Tasmania and Australia when they begin to take the field again in a few months. All the very best and thanks again.