The former leader plans to sit inconspicuously in the corner, which will be difficult when your coffin is splitting with the weight of 12,363 Test and 13,288 one-day international runs.
Ponting led his side to more Test wins than any other captain. He knew a thing or two about losing series, too. Still, he has taken a vow of restraint and will only speak when spoken to.
Clarke is about to lead the team with Ponting in it to Bangladesh, but doesn’t foresee any problems.
The new skipper was asked if the former captain was “an elephant in the room”.
“I certainly don’t think Ricky is an elephant in any room,” he replied. “He has been an amazing player for a long time.
Bangladesh will be a great test of how things unfold. I know that he will allow me to do my job to the best of my ability.”
Clarke claims he would welcome input from Ponting.
“He’s got amazing experience, he’s been an amazing player and I learnt a lot being Ricky’s vice-captain and I will continue to learn from him as a leader,” he said.
Clarke said he would approach the job differently, but warned there were no quick fixes.
“It’s not about me being the next Ricky Ponting,” he said. “Because I am not Ricky Ponting, I am me and I want to do things my way with the help and support of those around me.
“I have been very lucky to have the experience I have captaining the Twenty20 team, getting the chance to captain a few one-dayers when Ricky is unavailable or injured, so I think the guys in the team know generally the way I go about my work and what I expect from all of us in the Australian cricket team.
“I don’t think there will be too many changes right now, our goals – Shane Watson, myself, the Australian cricket team – are the same, we all want to become the best team we can be.
“We want to become the top-ranked team in all forms and that is going to take a long time.”
Clarke, like Ponting, was terribly out of form with the bat in Test cricket this summer, but he says that rather than be a burden the captaincy might help.
“I am hoping it helps,” he said. “In the games where I have played and captained I think my form’s been pretty good, or it’s made me step up. That is another thing Ricky has taught me, to be leading from the front on the field.”
Clarke admitted his one-day form was better than his Test form recently and that he had “a lot of work to do and a lot of room for improvement”.
He is now in charge of the batting order of the Australian side. While the selectors will decide who plays for him, he has to decide where they bat.
The one-dayers against Bangladesh may not throw up too many surprises, but it will be the Test tour of Sri Lanka in August that might give a hint to the future.
Selectors will decide if they are brave enough to drop Simon Katich who has been the highest-scoring batsman in the side over the past three years and replace him with Phil Hughes and the same with Mike Hussey.
It might be the time to make wholesale changes, including dropping the new vice-captain Watson down the order to allow him to bowl more of his increasingly valuable seamers.
Clarke conceded the Australian side has a lot of work to do in all three forms of the game and said his captaincy will be marked by a return to the “old fashioned basics” of “batting, bowling and fielding”.
He wants Ponting to bat at three in Bangladesh, but says he must discuss Test batting orders with the coach, players and selectors before August.
“We have a great opportunity after these three one-dayers to sit down and look at our Test cricket and one-day cricket and work that out,” he said. “In these three one-dayers coming up, I don’t see any reason Ricky Ponting won’t bat at number three. In his last game for Australia he scored a 100.”
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