Going way back to the comparison of Ponting's renaissance with that of Tendulkar, I would say that a comparison to Dravid is much more accurate, and a cautionary tale too. Rahul had his struggles a few years back aged 37 or so, but pushed through and eventually dominated England last winter despite the Indians being thrashed. Amazing effort, no doubt, but his subsequent tour of Australia showed him up as too old, well past it, and a drag on the team in the crucial position of #3. His technical problems (back foot moving away, continually bowled) were huge and made him a shadow of his former self.
Without wanting to take away from the great man's legacy, surely India would have been better served with Kohli at #3 and Sharma or someone at #6. Of course no-one would have wanted to pull the plug on Rahul after his amazing performances in England (and those that followed at home against WI), but it just goes to show that you can only mask the march of time for a while before it returns with a vengance.
I worry that Ponting might suffer the same fate - probably not against the Windies but South Africa would be a concern. He has conquered his issues with falling across the line for now, but in time they will inevitably return, likely against a better bowling attack than what India produced.
I hope for his sake, and the team's, that he hangs up the boots before it's too late.
Without wanting to take away from the great man's legacy, surely India would have been better served with Kohli at #3 and Sharma or someone at #6. Of course no-one would have wanted to pull the plug on Rahul after his amazing performances in England (and those that followed at home against WI), but it just goes to show that you can only mask the march of time for a while before it returns with a vengance.
I worry that Ponting might suffer the same fate - probably not against the Windies but South Africa would be a concern. He has conquered his issues with falling across the line for now, but in time they will inevitably return, likely against a better bowling attack than what India produced.
I hope for his sake, and the team's, that he hangs up the boots before it's too late.
It was telling - if surprising - that the selectors dropped him from the ODI squad as soon as he entered another phase of problems. I suspect he's on a fairly short rope now which has shown the selectors in a completely different light to me. He's had too long a period of poor form previous to the Indian series to be able to enter another and just get away with sitting there in the test team like a decoy duck.

