Say what you like about Ricky Ponting, actually don’t; that’s my job. After all, I’m the one with a sports column and you’re not, unless you are, in which case, fuck off and think up your own Demetriou jokes.

Where was I? Ricky Ponting. Never liked him. Sure, he cleaned up his act after that night at Big Bill’s Bottomless Bogan Bourbon and Beefsteak Barry Barn, but there was just something missing from him and the team all through his captaincy. Winning a lot, for one thing. Ha, see what I did there?

Anyway. Punter was, and still occasionally is a very very good batsman. That is all, in my book, he ever was. His captaincy, as far as running a Test Match, well, when he was good he was pretty good (as long as everything was going okay), and when he was bad he was bloody woeful. Over after over of a bowler whose measure had clearly been taken by the batsmen two sessions ago, run-saving field placements when we needed wickets and vice versa, all these things have made for a disappointing end to what should, or at least, could have been a stellar and memorable captaincy.

Of course, he was not in any way assisted by the consortium of dribbling poo-throwers laughingly referred to as the Board of Selectors and their Chair-Ape, the poo-thrower’s poo-thrower Andrew Hilditch.

Captain: “I think the pitch will take spin.”

Hilditch: “Oh, so you want a spinner? Here’s one who’s played two first-class games a year ago.”

Captain: “Thanks, but how about that bloke who took a shedload of wickets last time he played a Test and has got good form in his past few Shield games?”

Hilditch:”Ooh, look over there!”

Post game, Next Test....

Captain: “Well, you weren’t entirely wrong about that young bloke, he bowled pretty well for a fourteen year old, I think another season or two in Shield and he’s got a good Test career ahead of him. Can we get back that first bloke I was talking about some time soon?”

Hilditch: “Um, yeah. Anyway, the next Test is a green-top, so you can have three new spinners, and no matter how bad they are, you’re stuck with at least one of them for the next two Tests, and then, once that first bloke is completely demoralised by being dropped and totally out of form, you can have him back. Gee I miss Andrew Symonds, don’t you? Are you sure we can’t sew his leg back on and fill him full of piss and burden you with him again?”

I would have been permanently drunk had I been Australian Captain and having to deal with that shit week after week, and then listening to Hilditch telling the world that everyone from the coach to the captain to the physio was to blame and we’re all so lucky we’ve got the mushroom-induced visionaries of the Selection Panel to somehow carry us through these dark times.

And I would have been angry, too, which brings me to the main problem I’ve always had with Punter. Remember Captain Grumpy? Alan Border always looked like he was ready to punch somebody, and when he said “Bowl to the field I set you”, bowlers bloody well did, cause they knew that somebody was about to be them.

There’s anger and there’s anger. Border’s kind of anger was an energy, just as easily directed at himself, that motivated his team, and dragged us from the misery of the mid-eighties to the ORSMness of the Waugh and Taylor years. Ponting’s anger always seemed to me just frustration that the things beyond his control had managed to over-run the things that should have been within his control but weren’t.

Sorry if this has all been a bit negative, Ricky, there are plenty who could’ve done worse. I hope your batting improves without the weight of captaincy upon you, and always remember this: there is more cricket in your little finger than there is, was or ever will be in the entire body of the man who chaired the Selectors and made your job so much more difficult than it should have been.

I haven’t seen enough of Michael Clarke yet to give a definitive opinion, but noted cricket sage Leigh Sales seems to think he’s nice...

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The AFL season’s one whole round old, and already, if the fooddie meeja is to be believed, and hell, why wouldn’t you believe fooddie writers, we have seen ominous portents and harbingers and various signs and omens of the season to come. To wit, St Kilda are still ugly, the Cats miss their Special Boy, Collingwood are very very good, Richmond have improved from being a rabble to being a rabble who are at least keen, and Channel Seven should not only lose the rights, Channel Seven should be set on fire and then fed to Catherine Deveny.

I am still waiting for the highest-paid player in the AFL, Andrew Demetriou, to tell us how he can in any conscience accept money from Channel Seven for the right to NOT show gam... Oh, hang on, silly me. Conscience. This is, after all, the man who has closed all the suburban grounds and turned those that remain into pocket-emptying franchises for Spotless Catering while allowing ground management to deafen us with idiot ads on the replay screens, censor banners for fear of offending advertisers and charge more and more every year for me to sit in the nose-bleeds while prime corporate seats remain empty. This is the man who rigs the fixture every year for the benefit of Collingwood and thus the networks, and has rigged the draft so that Greater Western Sydney will cherry-pick the best players in the land (except those that are handed to the Gold Coast) for the next decade to play in an empty stadium in a suburb where no one has heard of them and even fewer are interested in them.

Yes, Andrew, the season has begun - Hilditch gets a few months off, and now it’s your turn. Welcome to my winter, one and all.

This column originally appeared on ABC’s The Drum and for at least the next four weeks, you can read Juzzy’s sporting shouts every Friday on The Drum.

When you do, make sure to comment, and tweet and facebook about how fucking awesome and hilarious he is, so the gig becomes permanent.

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