Ponting still has desire

Ricky Ponting insists his desire to captain his country is stronger than it has ever been after becoming only the second Australian skipper to lose two Ashes series on English soil.

The 34-year-old refused to rule out the possibility of returning to England for the 2013 series and accepted ultimate responsibility for the series defeat shortly after touching down at Sydney airport on Wednesday night.

But while Ponting revealed he would consider playing on in the unlikely event he is stripped of his captaincy, he declared himself the best man to lead Australian cricket into the future.

"I still think I've got a lot to offer the team as a batsman and as a captain and a leader," he said.

"If it ends up getting to the point where I'm not the captain then obviously, as I said, my hunger and determination to keep playing this game's as good as ever."

"So if that's with a 'c' next to my name all well and good, if it's not I still think I've got a lot to offer particularly a lot of the younger guys that are in our set-up at the moment."

Ponting, who took over the Test captaincy in 2004, added the disappointment of the Ashes defeat has only served to heighten his desire to lead the side in the foreseeable future.

"It's probably never been stronger than right now," he said of his hunger to play on.

"I got asked a lot about that the other night and I built this series up so much for myself in a personal way as well."

"I wanted to be the best player I could be and the best leader I could be right through the last couple of months and I felt I've given myself every opportunity to do that."

"I'm disappointed that I didn't make more runs, I felt after getting off to a good start in Cardiff the way I did that I actually felt that I was batting quite well through the series and probably just didn't make the runs that I should have got."

"So that's disappointing but my hunger is as good as ever."

Ponting, who will rejoin the team after a 12-day break for the final three matches of the upcoming one-day series with England before taking the reigns for the ICC Champions Trophy later next month, labelled calls from some former players for him to step down as inevitable.

"At the end of the day leaders are always judged on their results I guess," he said.

"It doesn't matter whether it's in business or sport, and unfortunately for me and for the team we haven't achieved the result we would have liked to achieve over the last couple of months."

"So I can understand those point of views being out there but the pleasing thing for me at the moment is that I'm getting some support from Cricket Australia and from the selectors about things that have happened over the last couple of months, so for me that's a really positive sign."

Of his chances of leading a third Ashes touring party to England in 2013 Pointing added: "I'd love to be able to go back and give it one more crack but that's a long way away yet, I've got to worry about the next 12 or 18 months or two years first and see if all that hunger is still there, but right at the moment it definitely is."

Meanwhile, Brad Haddin has been told he needs to have surgery on his injured finger.

Haddin was reviewed by a hand surgeon in Sydney upon his return to the country and received the disappointing news.

"It's been decided that the fracture of the ring finger of the left hand, sustained in the Test series in England, will be best dealt with by Brad having surgery," said Cricket Australia's Doctor Trevor James.

"Brad will undergo corrective surgery in Sydney tomorrow. He will therefore not be available for the limited over internationals in England."

"His fitness for the ICC Champions Trophy in South Africa and the ODI series in India in October and November will be reviewed at a later date."