Australian cricket captain Ricky Ponting on his squad

Australia captain Ricky Ponting arrived in England and the taunting has already started. The team have arrived for the Ashes and Ponting has already provoked the England camp by claiming a half-fit Andrew Flintoff can have little positive impact on the destination of the urn. Ponting and his relatively inexperienced squad for the forthcoming ICC World Twenty20, landed in Birmingham without the big-name draws of 2005 such as Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath and Adam Gilchrist. And after revealing his "relaxed, fresh and rejuvenated" state of mind following four weeks away from the game, Ponting suggested he had already claimed an advantage over the likes of Flintoff and Kevin Pietersen by staying away from the Indian Premier League. The Lancashire all-rounder has been ruled out of next month's Twenty20 tournament as he continues to recover from knee surgery, after suffering an injury during his stint in the IPL. Since returning from the lucrative event, staged in South Africa due to security fears, Pietersen has also been laid low with an Achilles problem. Ponting is, meanwhile, totally fit and believes Flintoff has it all to prove if he is to reclaim the heights of England's 2005 Ashes triumph, and avoid the whitewash shame when he captained his country 18 months later. He added: "That's going to be the great decision the England selectors are going to have to make come the first Test. "Flintoff is obviously very important to their make-up and set-up. Maybe, as we saw in 2007, if he's not 100 per cent fit then maybe that sort of impact he can have around the team is not there. "2005 to 2007 we saw two completely different players and that had a lot to do with the level of fitness that he had under his belt going into each series. "That's where they're going to have a tough decision to make."

» More on this story... «

ITN | May 29, 2009

Tags:. .UK News. .yuvraj singh15456. .batsman. .doing. .delhi