(Chris Forster is a avid cricket fan and citizen journalist.)

The selectors were the first to be accused after they failed to introduce youth into the team. Usman Khawaja and Steve Smith sat out the first half of the series and Callum Ferguson and Nathan Hauritz weren't selected at all.

After the selectors surrendered to the call for an overhaul and Smith, who played the final two Tests, and Khawaja, who made his debut in the fifth Test, were called upon and the results remained the same, a new fall guy was needed.

The attention then turned to Ricky Ponting and whether he was the right man to lead Australia against the old enemy. Past players and sections of the media began questioning his leadership credentials and murmurs began circulating that he should relinquish the captaincy for the good of the team.

The finger pointing and blame game had been ongoing since England first touched down in Australia. The constant distractions and negative media attention may be as much to blame for Australia's poor showing against England as anything else.

While Ponting's individual form during the Ashes series was below par, as he himself admitted after only passing 50 in one innings, his captaincy should never have come under question.

It was just a matter of a country with a winning culture trying to find a scapegoat for a poor series, and Ponting was an easy target. It's well and good to suggest axing Ponting as skipper, but then the question has to be asked; who do you replace him with?

The two leading candidates are Michael Clarke and Tim Paine, neither of whom have an amazing track record. Clarke has never had the undivided support of the Australian public, and several influential former Test stars, including Kim Hughes, have questioned his leadership qualities.

When Clarke was handed the reins as Australian captain for the first time in the final Test against England due to a finger injury sustained by Ponting, Clarke failed to produce the goods as Australia was beaten by an innings and 83 runs.

Tim Paine, who many people believe is a suitable candidate as a future Australian Test skipper, despite not playing a single test throughout the entire Ashes series, failed when he was handed the captaincy of the Prime Ministers XI against England in a one-day match. Granted that in Paine's case he didn't have players of the same calibre at his disposal as Ponting and Clarke, but the result was the same nonetheless, a defeat at the hands of the English.

Without an obvious successor to his throne, there seems no sense in Ponting stepping aside as Australian captain just yet.

The media and public have tried blaming the selectors and the captain, but maybe, England deserved to beat Australia. As mind boggling as this seems, maybe the reason Australia played so poorly throughout the Ashes campaign was because the English didn't allow us to play well.

As hard as it may be for some people to accept, perhaps there's a possibility that England was just the better side. The English entered the series in better form, they were better prepared than the Australian side and most importantly, there team was well balanced. Every player knew the role they had to play and their individual spots in the team never came under question. As much as it pains me to say this, England deserved to win the series and retain the Ashes.

Rather than trying to blame the selectors and Ricky Ponting for the series defeat, I think it might be time to credit England for outperforming Australia throughout the entire Ashes series and in their most recent hit out against the Prime Minister's XI in Canberra.

After seeing the English's performance in their one day clash against the Prime Minister's XI, it doesn't look as though Australia's summer is going to get any easier with the upcoming one day international series. At least we have the World Cup in India to look forward too.