Morning Ricky, morning everyone. Today, a very special hello to Ricky Ponting, captain of the Australia cricket team, newly arrived on these shores. Greetings from everybody in England, especially Gary Pratt. I wish Ricky and his team the most marvellous summer and I hope it will be as memorable as the last time he came here.

We all remember that summer of 2005 and how the Australians arrived - swaggered - into England. They had a bunch of cricketers I had actually heard of in those days. Well, everybody had heard of them, and it must be remembered that in this country, sport is not the sole concern of the population. (The climate here is indeed poor, so we spend a lot of time indoors reading Joyce.) (Joyce, by the way, is not a Sheila.)

It all began with a Twenty20 match. I expect Ricky remembers it. Both sides said afterwards that it meant absolutely nothing and that the real business of the Ashes was what mattered. Michael Vaughan, the England captain then, was lying through his teeth.

He knew that Australia had been marmalised by an England team who bowled ferociously and to a plan, and that a defeat on that scale is never a trivial matter. Was Ricky also lying? If he genuinely believed it didn't matter, he made a significant error. Australia, the arch bullies of international cricket, had been bullied in their turn. They didn't seem to like it much.

Australia's problem throughout the summer was adjusting to the reality of an England team playing with confidence and it was a problem that began that evening at the Rose Bowl. Now, as Ponting and his boys arrive in England to contest the World Twenty20, is there not some kind of deep unease running through the squad?

But no one in England will be saying that England have a better team than Australia, that England will win back the Ashes, that England will win 5-0. That sort of thing is unrealistic and rather vulgar.

We are used to disappointments in sport, largely because we take football seriously. You tend to get disappointments when you try to win a game played ferociously by every nation in the world bar a couple. In cricket and rugby there are only ever half a dozen contenders: in football, most countries can get that number of intense rivals by ringing up their neighbours. So the English never shout their chances in any sport too loud and rightly so.

Australians do the exact opposite. This makes them wonderfully impressive when everything goes their way, but unable to deal with an altered reality when any team in general, and England in particular, are capable of giving them a game. Four years ago, Australia failed to cope with the idea of an England team who gave as good as they got. This sense of dismay was what gave England the edge and it allowed England to win back the Ashes.

Now I am not saying that England are a bunch of world-beaters, but at least there are signs that the team are gathering that essential touch of confidence. The batting order has acquired a certain shape and solidity, especially with Ravi Bopara at No 3, and the bowlers are showing signs of a relish for hunting in a pack with a swinging ball. Does that remind Ricky of anything? Surely he hasn't forgotten his trip here four years ago.

As a bonus, England spent the first few weeks of the summer learning not to rely on Andrew Flintoff, so much so that, even if he is fit for the Ashes, nobody will be depending on him to take 20 wickets and score 200 runs every match.

But never mind England. How is Ricky getting on without his own big names? Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath, Matthew Hayden, Justin Langer, Adam Gilchrist: all gone. The only big name left is Ricky's. I hope that doesn't weigh on him too heavily. I am sure he will do brilliantly with Ben Hilfenhaus and Brad Haddin and Nathan Hauritz and Marcus North.

I am equally sure that Ricky will be intrigued by the way England enticed Phillip Hughes out to England to play for Middlesex. What better way of getting a batsman worked out before the serious business of the summer begins?

True, Ricky does have a few people we have heard of in his team: Brett Lee, Stuart Clark, Simon Katich, Michael Hussey (although I would be wary of including anyone nicknamed “Mr Cricket”). The trouble is that these players have spent all their lives as No 2s, expecting others to carry the weight. The new reality of becoming alpha males will test these aged understudies.

Though how you understudy Warne is something nobody has worked out. Australia have decided that there is no point in even trying, and so they will contest the Ashes without any serious attempt at building an attack around spin. England have two spinners who can give the ball a decent rip.

Ricky hasn't even got the team he wants. Andrew Symonds - only quite a nice chap, as our Chief Cricket Correspondent trenchantly expressed it - I shan't translate that into Australian - failed to make the squad, because he is a liability. Damn good cricketer when sober. “I know the selectors have thought long and hard about this squad and the squad has come up without Andrew's name in it,” Ponting said. I will translate that: “I wish Symonds was playing.”

A lot of cricket comes down to leadership. I know that Australians tend to think that we in England make too much fuss about leadership. In the egalitarian paradise of Australia, you just pick 11 blokes and one of them has to be captain and it doesn't really matter which, right? (At last we have an explanation for Ricky.) I hope it doesn't keep Ricky awake at night, but if Warne had been captaining Australia in 2005, Australia would never have lost the Ashes. Not only is Warne more tactically aware - few people have read the game better - but he doesn't go off half-cocked.

Ricky probably wasn't aware of the glee that rocked around England when he threw that unforgettable wobbler in the fourth Test at Trent Bridge. It was in that show of demented petulance that it became clear that Ricky had lost it, “it” being the Ashes, of course. Où sont les Pratts d'antan? As they say in Tasmania, Ricky's birthplace.

For it was Pratt, fielding as a substitute in a position in which he excels at cover, who ran out Ponting on 48, when he was batting serenely after Australia had followed on. A captain's century would have turned the series: Pratt's brilliant direct hit sent Ponting back with a hissy fit - not fair! - like a loser on America's Next Top Model. Australia never recovered. When Ricky lost his temper, Australia lost the Ashes.

Ah, but we're all four years on and four years wiser. I remember, in 2005, saying again and again, to anyone who would listen: “All I want is a good contest.” That's as true now as it was then. I think we all feel that. Perhaps in his heart of hearts, that's all Ricky hopes for as well.