Ricky Ponting has called the Ashes defeat a "pain that lingers". For his former team-mate Shane Warne: "It hurts. It hurts a bloody lot."
Ricky Ponting has called the Ashes defeat a "pain that lingers". For his former team-mate Shane Warne: "It hurts. It hurts a bloody lot."
Writing his newspaper column two days after the Ashes defeat, Ponting said: "But as disappointing as the result 
was at The Oval, I couldn't be more excited about the future."
The Australian captain went on to say: "While we had bad sessions at Lord's and The Oval which cost us both games, we completely dominated England at Cardiff and Leeds, showing there was little between the two teams.
"Coming on the back of our strong series victory in South Africa earlier in the year, I believe we're on the right track and our younger players can only get better with experience."
Admitting that the "buck stopped with him", Ponting said he was keen to play in the next Ashes series in England four years hence even if it meant playing under another captain.
Warne, on the other hand, wrote in his column yesterday: "I really felt for Ricky Ponting and the Australian team after seeing Andrew Strauss lift up the title urn at The Oval. It took me back to Michael Vaughan doing the same in 2005, and how it felt to lose the Ashes for the first time in my career."
Warne went on to say: "The vultures are circling and looking for answers but to me, it's pointless and destructive to start to criticise every one concerned about why we lost the Ashes.
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"It is more constructive for the people who make the decisions to sit down and work out how to move forward.
"There has been a lot of talk about this being a team in transition.
"The team is inexperienced and quite a few of them were playing in their first Ashes series but there comes a time when the transition period is over.
"How long is a transition period? This Australian team has been together for a solid 12 months and at times they have played excellent cricket.
"At other times some ordinary cricket. What people have to realise is that this team will be inconsistent, which will frustrate everyone from spectators, to selectors to players.
"There is no disgrace in losing if you are outplayed by a better team, which was the case in 2005," the spin legend wrote.
"This time around, though, I don't think England were much better than Australia and that's why it hurt even more and the questions about why we lost have to be asked.
"Australia could not win the big moments. I do not blame the selectors for losing the Ashes, but I do believe that someone has to be accountable for not picking Nathan Hauritz at The Oval," Warne wrote.
"Our seesawing between good and bad players in the series was due to inexperience. The new players following the retirement of some great players will be better players for their exposure in a tough series like this. They will learn to do things differently under pressure".
Ponting returned home yesterday for a 11-day break, along with Simon Katich, Brad Haddin and Stuart Clark, before going on to South Africa and India for limited overs series. All three players expressed their unstinted support for Ponting as captain despite the team's setback.
Haddin will undergo surgery on his injured finger today.
"We can't mask our disappointment, but a lot of the indicators were that we were good enough," Pontings said, the cut on his lips suffered while fielding in the last Test, obvious.
"At the beginning of the series I thought we would win and said as much, but we fell at the last hurdle."
Meanwhile, former Australian batsman Dean Jones, who Indian fans will remember for his epic 210 in the Chennai Test in 1986 has suggested - in all seriousness - that Shane Wane be brought out of retirement to take charge of the Australian side.
An Australian newspaper has reported that Jones, now a media commentator, ran down the wicket during an interview on BBC Radio Five Live shouting: "Someone has to be accountable for this and there will be some casualties, there's no doubt about it..."
Jones said the options for the captaincy "are Michael Clarke or Marcus North or even Simon Katich.
"Or one more u2026? Ask Shane Warne to come out of retirement just for two years, then give it to Michael Clarke.
"A lot of people might be thinking that's stupid but it will take him two months, three months to get himself fit, just let him play the Test matches and I tell you what, he would do it in a heartbeat."
Indian fans will also recall that the maverick Jones got into serious trouble with his television bosses some time back for suggesting on air that South African batsman Hashim Amla looked like a terrorist.
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