Ponting's the question but is Clarke the answer?

Please excuse my brief philosophising, but in cricket, as in life, you need to ask the right questions to get the right answers. With some ordinary records under his belt and baffling tactical decisions, quite obviously the conclusion of Ricky Ponting's tenure as Australian captain is at its when and not if stage. But the thing that astounds me is that while questions are quite rightly being asked of Ponting, the sound of those questioning Michael Clarke's seemingly inevitable progression to new skipper is being drowned out by a butterfly's wingbeat ten miles away.

The Australian Test captaincy has always been a much more serious job than in other Test countries, perhaps because of the usual abundance of potential candidates or the pressure to succeed placed on the eventual victor to follow in the footsteps of some of the most successful captains and teams in history.

In recent times, current captain Ricky Ponting has fallen foul of this pressure, with Australia falling from one of the greatest teams in history and undoubtedly the No. 1 in Tests and ODIs, to a miserable fifth in the ICC's Test rankings. Although I am an outspoken critic of Ponting's captaincy - I still maintain that Australia lost the first Test in the recent series in India because of terrible captaincy from Ponting during VVS Laxman and Ishant Sharma's match-winning partnership - it has been an extremely difficult period for the Australians regardless, losing some of the greatest players in history and having to go along with some ordinary selections.

But it is this slip in the rankings and some weaknesses in the side that have led many of us to contemplate Australian cricket post-Ponting, and depending on how the Ashes plays out this summer, this period could be upon us sooner rather than later.

But (there's always a "but") is Michael Clarke the right man to lead Australia? It may surprise some of you to learn that I firmly believe no. There are three main reasons behind this: Firstly, he has no experience. A dozen or so dead-rubber fill-ins as one-day captain should not be the requirements for graduating to your captaincy diploma. Clarke has absolutely no experience captaining in first-class cricket, and I think that for him to have any chance of fulfilling his aspirations to captain the Test side he should serve his apprenticeship as a first-class captain learning the unique tactical nuances of the extended game.

Secondly, we need a fresh approach. A side-effect of not having had a protracted period (or any period) in charge of a first-class side means that basically everything Clarke knows about captaincy has come from Ricky Ponting, Australia's worst captain in at least 25 years. All the talk about Australia being in a rebuilding phase is completely true, and to grow as an international side we need to see a captain with fresh ideas and an unbiased outlook on the side, not the same old stale ideas just coming from a different player.

And last but absolutely not least, I think there are better candidates. Cameron White and Simon Katich seem to fit the criteria; they firstly deserve a place in the Test side (White in particular would solve Australia's first slip issues), tactically they add something more than Ponting or Clarke, and they've shown that they can successfully lead cricket teams. Before leaving the State scene a couple of years ago to be recalled as an opening batsman, Simon Katich led NSW to the Sheffield Shield and showed that his cricket didn't suffer under the burden of captaincy, totalling over 1000 runs in that 07/08 season. He also led NSW to the inaugural Champions League Twenty20 title in 2009, showing that he was not a static captain devoid of ideas. If nothing else, Twenty20 cricket does promote tactical innovation. Perhaps the only item in Katich's con list is his age; at 35 he should really be looking to vacate the international scene around the same side as Ponting.

Still, he remains a genuine but ultimately short-term option. Cameron White would be my choice as Ponting's successor. Under him, Victoria have become the undisputed leading side in Australian domestic cricket, making umpteen finals in the Sheffield Shield, one-day competition, and Big Bash over the last few years. Unfortunately for him, he's been labelled as a limited-overs specialist and gaining a recall to the Test side as a specialist batsman does not seem to have crossed the selectors' minds, despite averaging over 40 in first-class cricket, and having flourished as a batsman in recent one-day series for the international side.

Regardless of the end result, Michael Clarke, for me, will remain unfit to captain the Australian cricket team in the long term. We can only hope that a grave mistake is not made by anointing a man who is unfit to take the role, because in a "rebuilding phase" the wrong leadership could potentially cause the Australian side to drift backwards