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London: Former Australia captain Ian Chappell has come out in support of current skipper Ricky Ponting despite the Ashes series loss in England.
But former Test batsman Dean Jones believes leg-spin great Shane Warne, widely regarded as one of the most tactically astute players never to captain Australia, could be tempted out of retirement to lead the team.
England's 197-run fifth Test win at the Oval here on Sunday gave them the Ashes 2-1 and left Ponting with the unwanted record of becoming the first Australia captain to lose two Ashes series in England in 119 years.
But Chappell, captain of the successful Australia side of the early to mid 1970s, said Ponting had paid dearly for being in charge when the likes of star players Warne, Glenn McGrath, Adam Gilchrist, Matthew Hayden and Justin Langer had all retired from Test cricket.
Those five though were all involved when Australia, under Ponting's leadership, lost the 2005 Ashes in England, also by a 2-1 margin, before they each featured in the subsequent 5-0 triumph in Australia in 2006/07.
No member of the Australia attack that played in this Ashes series had any previous experience of playing Test cricket in England.
But Chappell said Ponting could be faulted for rushing through the closing overs of the drawn first Test in Cardiff, where last-wicket duo James Anderson and Monty Panesar clung on for the final 69 balls to deny Australia victory.
"Overall I thought he did a pretty fair job as a captain," Chappell told the Cricinfo website here on Monday.
"And when you consider the turnover of very good players that he has had under his captaincy - no other Australian captain has had to cope with that."
Chappell, the last Australia captain to be involved in a drawn Ashes back in 1972, before going on to enjoy series wins over England in 1974/75 and 1975, added: "Now is not the right time to sack Ponting as captain.
"For starters if you sack him you will probably lose your best batsman because I don't think he would want to continue if he was sacked as captain. But the most important thing is I don't believe that he deserves to be sacked as captain, he's still the best man for the job."
However, turning to the first Test, Chappell said: "There I guess you could perhaps query Ricky Ponting's choice of bowlers at the end. I think he went for quantity of overs rather than quality of overs and that was a mistake."
Warne, the first bowler to take 700 Test wickets, revitalised Hampshire during his spell as captain of the English county earlier this decade and led Rajasthan Royals to victory in the inaugural Indian Premier League (IPL) Twenty20 tournament in 2008.
Jones, speculating on possible successors to Ponting, said the 39-year-old Warne, whose colourful private life effectively denied him what chance he had of captaining Australia, could be tempted out of retirement "in a heartbeat" to lead the side before handing on to current vice-captain Michael Clarke.
"Ask Shane Warne to come out of retirement just for two years, then give it to Michael Clarke," Jones told BBC Radio Five Live.
"A lot of people might be thinking 'that's stupid' but it will take him two months, three months to get himself fit, just let him play the Test matches and, I tell you what, he would do it in a heartbeat.
"I don't think they'll do that, I don't think they'll go that far but it'll be an option, I tell you, that'll be looked at."
