Ricky Ponting says Australia got lazy during their dominant era Matthew Hayden, Adam Gilchrist, Ricky Ponting and Shane Warne celebrate Australia's last Ashes series triumph in 2006. The 5-0 whitewash came at the height of the nation's dominance of world cricket. RICKY Ponting senses Australia "got lazy" as their era of dominance faded, but predicts they will be back with a vengeance for the Ashes. And the former Test captain has warned England that their current run as a Test power won't last either. Australia, under Ponting, have lost their past two Ashes campaigns - in 2009 and then on home turf in 2010/11 - but with an unprecedented schedule of back-to-back series in the next eight months, they have a chance to restate their preferred world order. Ponting, in England this summer after signing for Surrey, will be a mere Ashes spectator for the first time in almost 20 years. The 38-year-old is ideally-qualified, though, to comment on the two old enemies' prospects - especially how Australia will shape up without him. "We probably got a bit lazy," he said, reflecting on Australia's time at the top of the world rankings. As a cricket nation, we probably took where we were for granted a little bit and weren't willing to go the extra yard to stay those couple of steps ahead of the rest. Before we knew it, we had a couple of teams catching up -- and now we're trying to do everything we can to reverse that whole cycle again. Ponting rules out emergency Ashes recall There was an inevitability about Australia's comparative decline - as there will be, according to Ponting, in an eventual downturn in the fortunes of England and others. "In three or four years this England team are going to have a lot of their guys - the (James) Andersons of the world, those guys who have been such great players for a long time - who all of a sudden aren't going to be around the team," he said. Those positions are not easy to fill. As for this summer, Ponting insists Australia will be tough opponents. I actually do think they can be competitive - especially if our top-order batsmen find a way to score runs. I think the series might be quite close. There's a lot of negativity about the Australian Test team in particular right now, on the back of the 4-0 loss in India, but I think most teams who would have played that Indian team in the conditions our boys played in would have found it pretty difficult to win a Test match as well.