Former Australian captain Ricky Ponting has opened up on the next challenge for the national team after winning the Border-Gavaskar Trophy against India as well. He also observed that Australia have too many ageing players in their line-up and they need to take a call on this.

Speaking on the latest episode of the ICC Review, Ponting elaborated about Australia’s squad: “There’s not one player in their 20s in that team. You’ve got one at 19 and everyone else over 30. That’s going to be the next challenge for this Australian group. That’s going to be the next challenge for this Australian group, not just for the Australian team, but for Australian cricket is to bring on this new group of young players. There’s not many opportunities that present themselves.”

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However, Ricky Ponting added that the Sri Lanka tour might not be the best tour to blood young players, considering the enormous spin challenges the country represents as well.

“We’ve got a tour to Sri Lanka and then the West Indies coming up before the Ashes next summer. If they are looking at bringing young players in, it probably needs to start in Sri Lanka and the West Indies. And if you’re bringing young players into the Sri Lankan tour, that’s not going to be an easy place for anyone to start,” he added.

“When I look back to the start of this series and just look how far off the mark the Aussies were in that first game, I think there was a lot of criticism that was flying around about the team. It almost looked a little un-Australian. When you lose a Test match like that against another very strong opposition side, you do have to do a bit of soul searching and do a lot of talking. I think one of the things that probably helped the Aussies was the big break between the first two games,” Ricky Ponting concluded.