Ponting ready for split captaincy

Sydney:

Amidst calls for his head after the recent Ashes loss, Australia skipper Ricky Ponting on Wednesday said he would not mind sharing the captaincy, with his deputy Michael Clarke being made in-charge of the shorter versions of the game.

"If that's the way that I or others, outside of what I'm thinking, decide (is) the right way to go, there's absolutely no reason why that couldn't happen," Ponting told reporters at the Sydney International Airport.

Ponting is the only second Australian captain after Billy Murdoch to twice lose the Ashes in England. The team also slipped to fourth place for the first time on the ICC Test rankings, having lost three of their past five series.

Ponting himself was elevated to one-day captaincy in 2002 and he shared the leadership with Steve Waugh until the latter retired from Test cricket in 2004.

"It has happened in the past with Australian teams. It is happening with other teams around the world right at the moment.

"Paul Collingwood is captain of the England Twenty20 team and Andrew Strauss is captain of the one-day and Test cricket teams. Those things are things that need to be thought long and hard about, but if it means that I'm going to be better off for Test matches and bigger series when they come around..." he said.

The 28-year-old Clarke has captained Australia in 11 ODIs and two Twenty20 internationals.