Former Australia captain Ricky Ponting doubted the commitment of his vice-captain Michael Clarke The intervention, in an extract from Ponting's autobiography published in an Australian newspaper, looks certain to increase the pressure on Clarke, whose captaincy has been marred by dressing-room splits, ahead of this winter's Ashes. Ponting, who stood down after nine years in the post in 2011, said the concerns over his successor-designate and vice captain - who he called "Pup" - had prevented him from considering resigning earlier. He said that at one stage "we wondered if he'd lost a little of his sense of team." "It wasn't that he was disruptive or treacherous and publicly he said all the right things," Ponting said in his autobiography At The Close Of Play. But he had never been one to get too involved in planning sessions or debriefs at the end of a day's play, or to volunteer to take on any of the captain's workload. More than once, [coach] Tim Nielsen and I had encouraged him to take on more of a leadership role within the group, but when Pup was down on form or if he had a problem away from cricket, he'd go into his shell. He added: "Away from cricket, he moved in a different world to the rest of us. It never worried me if a bloke didn't want a drink in the dressing room, but I did wonder about blokes who didn't see the value in sticking around for a chat and a laugh and a post-mortem on the day's play. This was the time when we could revel in our success, pick up the blokes who were struggling, and acknowledge the guys who were at the peak of their powers. Pup hardly bought into this tradition for a couple of years and the team noticed. But he said Clarke now took on the responsibilities he had previously shied away from. "Perhaps I'd been wrong to be so concerned for so long," he added.