It looked like they had given up: Ponting

If anyone knows the stress and strain being visited upon Australia men’s team coach Justin Langer as his charges struggle to quell a rampant India, it’s his former Test teammate and close friend, Ricky Ponting.

Langer and Ponting shared a meal in Sydney last night, before play resumed on the penultimate day of the fourth Domain Series Test and Australia was compelled to consume another slice of unwanted history.

For the first time in more than 30 years, Australia were forced to follow-on in a Test on their home turf as India’s surge for their maiden series win here was slowed only by Sydney’s poor weather.

QUICK SINGLE Sydney gloom takes Test to a fifth day

But despite the pressure of unmet public expectations, disquiet over some selection decisions and the ongoing fall-out from last year’s ball-tampering crisis that saw Langer installed as coach replacing Darren Lehmann, Ponting is staunchly backing his mate.

"I had dinner with him last night, just to be a bit of a sounding board for him and give him a bit of support," Ponting told cricket.com.au today.

"It's a tough time - the team aren't playing well, the media are pretty hard on all the players and the coaching staff.

"But one thing I've said since he took the job is that you could not find a better person in the world to be in charge of the Australian cricket team right now.

"There might be other opinions out there about that, but I know Justin well.

"I'm speaking to the players a lot, they're all happy with the environment being created.

"They're working hard, and so far they haven't got the results but I think where we've seen Australian cricket over the last seven or eight months, things weren't going to change and turn around immediately.

"But I know they're on the right path, and certainly that's what all the players are saying."

Kuldeep carnage amid weather delays

Ponting acknowledges that the coaching role extracts a vast toll when a team is not enjoying success, and it is subjected to the sort of relentless scrutiny that invariably accompanies one of the most high-profile positions in Australia sport.

However, the ex-Test captain who played 83 Tests alongside his mate between 1998 and 2007 and then worked alongside Langer during his subsequent tenure as Test batting coach, claims the burden is not crushing, even if there are days when it must overwhelming.

"Any time you're part of the Australian cricket team, you want to want to have success and success is almost demanded of you if you're a player or a coach," Ponting said today.

"That hasn't come quite as regularly as the players or Justin would have liked.

"No doubt it's taking its toll, but not in a negative way whatsoever.

"He's doing his job brilliantly well - he's passionate about it, and wants to be the best coach Australia's ever had.

"He won't leave any stone unturned to give himself the best chance to do that.

"I think he would have known what he was getting himself into when he took the job.

"Having been a bloke who played 100-odd Tests and worked with teams that I played in as a batting coach, I think he was pretty aware of what would be coming.

"And then obviously taking over when (banned duo Steve) Smith and (David) Warner both went out together, I think his challenges grew even more as a result of that.

"They just haven't played a level of cricket that he would have expected, and I’m sure that the players haven't played the way they would have wanted to either as yet.

"That's where I think tomorrow becomes so important.

"There's still a lot to gain for the individual players and this team out of the last day of this contest.

"As a batsman, you've got to take every run that you can possibly get because they don't come around that easily, as our batsmen have seen throughout this series.

"And just a bit of pride in team performance can sometimes go a long way."

Handscomb hoping for final day hundred

Ponting cited an example from the truncated day four action at the SCG of the Australia Test team’s current flagging pride and under-siege mindset.

Nathan Lyon’s decision not to review an lbw verdict given against him when the home team was eight wickets down and battling to salvage a draw came in for criticism from the ex-Test skipper, who found the lapse inexcusable.

Particularly because Australia had both their allocated reviews available to them at the time.

Ponting also took no issue with the in-house criticism levelled at the misfiring team by bowling coach David Saker as well as Langer in the wake of their indifferent bowling efforts on the opening day.

When India piled on 4-303 to place themselves in a largely unassailable position in the final Test.

Although Ponting added he was disappointed that details of that spray were made public, after Saker conducted a radio interview the following morning.

"One thing I know about Justin is that he's not shy to have a pretty open and honest conversation with anybody, and that's what you expect from a coach," Ponting told cricket.com.au.

"It's no good patting people on the back day-in, day-out when they're not doing things you're expected to do.

"I've been around the team a bit the last 12 months, I've seen David Saker do the same thing and if I was a player and I was playing like this team is playing now, I'd expect a bit of a kick in the pants every now and then as well.

"The disappointing thing for me is that it's spoken about publicly

"Those things don’t need to be spoken about publicly, they can stay within the four walls of the dressing room.

"Hopefully everyone that was involved in that meeting has learnt a bit from it and they can be better as a result."

Domain Test Series v India

Dec 6-10: India won by 31 runs

Dec 14-18: Australia won by 146 runs

Dec 26-30: India won by 137 runs

Jan 3-7: Fourth Test, SCG

Australia squad: Tim Paine (c, wk), Josh Hazlewood (vc), Mitch Marsh (vc), Pat Cummins, Aaron Finch, Peter Handscomb, Marcus Harris, Travis Head, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Shaun Marsh, Peter Siddle, Mitchell Starc

India squad: Virat Kohli (c), Murali Vijay, KL Rahul, Mayank Agarwal, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane, Hardik Pandya, Hanuma Vihari, Rohit Sharma, Rishabh Pant (wk), Parthiv Patel (wk), Ravi Ashwin, Ravi Jadeja, Kuldeep Yadav, Mohammed Shami, Ishant Sharma, Umesh Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Bhuvneshwar Kumar