'Ponting influence vital'

Australian batting coach Justin Langer has emphasised the importance of Ricky Ponting to the Australian side.
The former skipper has endured a torrid run of form of late that has seen him fail to pass 50 in 12 innings and last scored a century in January 2010.
After two failures in Australia's embarrassing eight-wicket defeat at the hands of South Africa last week, many are calling for Ponting to be dropped, but Langer retains faith in the Tasmanian.
"We've got to be sensible about whether the guys you leave out or the changes you make are going to be replaced by someone better," said Langer.
"Some might argue we've got nothing to lose and anything could be better. Well, maybe, but someone like Ricky Ponting has not only got 12,500 Test runs but his influence in the team is unbelievable. He's a really tough case. That's why he's working hard. At the moment, in my opinion it's really important Ricky Ponting is in this Australian cricket team."
Having dominated world cricket during the 1990s and for much of the 2000s, Australia are now a force on the wane, sitting in fourth spot in the ICC Test rankings.
It's a wholly unfamiliar place for the Aussies, but one that Langer believes is part and parcel of the game.
"When I made my debut in '93, I came into a team of very senior players. Allan Border was the captain, Mark Taylor, the Waugh brothers -- very senior team. From '89 to now we haven't been in a situation like this," he explained.
"Sport is cyclical, there's no doubt about that. Fortunately our cycle went a lot longer than usual. The reality is, we've seen over the last 12 months or a little bit longer, that our cycle has changed; I don't know if we've reached the bottom of it yet. I haven't seen it in my career."
Having been bowled out for 47 in their second innings, the Australian camp has struggled to determine just how things managed to go so wrong.
Langer suggests that perhaps the team were too aggressive in their approach, looking to attack rather than consolidate on their 188-run first-innings lead.
"In the past, really good teams would have thought we're going to bury these blokes and we're going to get 500 and we're going to do whatever it takes to absolutely bury them," he said.
"Maybe we got a bit relaxed with it and thought we were going really well. We had a good tour of Sri Lanka and we were going well in this series. That's not how it works. With this group we need to keep getting much better at that."