Review must dig deep, says Ricky Ponting

Captain Ricky Ponting has backed calls for an in-depth review of the state of Australian cricket following his side's 3-1 Ashes defeat.

Ponting, who lost the urn for the third time as captain, believes the depth of Australian cricket has weakened in recent years to precipitate their fall from grace.

The best team in all formats of the game for the best part of two decades, Australia's dramatic decline was thrown into sharp focus by England's commanding display, and Ponting wrote in his column in The Australian: "There is a review after every season, of which I'm always a big part. I understand there will be a lot more involved in the review this time around and rightly so.

"The performance of the elite team over the past few weeks has been very disappointing. But I think it's important we look a fair bit deeper into Australian cricket than just the last couple of weeks."

Ponting expects every level of the game will come under scrutiny. "We've got to look further back to club cricket and junior cricket to find out what has caused us to end up in this position," he added.

"I think the whole structure of Australian cricket now needs looking at."