Australia’s captain Ricky Ponting celebrates after reaching 100 on the second day of the first cricket test match between England and Australia in Cardiff, Wales, Thursday July 9, 2009. AP Photo/Jon Super
The disaster at Cardiff when England scrapped their way to a draw is now becoming apparent as Australia goes into the fourth Test of the 2009 Ashes series one down. The Headingley Test is a must-win match for Ricky Ponting if Australia is to retain the Ashes.
The fifth Test at the Oval will be played on a pitch that is as bland as a beige carpet. Two county sides recently scored over 1100 between them in their first innings on it.
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The irony in all of this is that the statistics of the series indicate that Australia are well ahead in players who have scored the most runs and taken the most wickets.
Andrew Strauss is the only England batsman in the top six run-makers in the series.
And there are five Australian bowlers who have taken more wickets than the leading England bowler, Graham Onions on eight wickets. Australia, as well, has scored six centuries to one by an England batsman.
But it is where and when the runs are scored and the wickets taken that really count. England took 20 wickets at Lords and won the Test.
Australia took only nineteen wickets at Cardiff and drew.
Ponting justified bowling his relatively innocuous spinners at the death at Cardiff on the grounds that he wanted to get as many balls bowled as possible. This attitude neglected a basic fact of cricket that it takes only one ball to get a wicket, and that the quality of the bowling rather than its quantity should be the main consideration.
As he reaches the last years of a brilliant career (he is, in my opinion, Australia’s second-greatest batsman), Ponting faces the reality that he should relinguish the captaincy of the side after this Ashes series.
He needs now to concentrate on getting the last and best vintage from his batting for the next couple of years.
This is a matter of putting Ponting’s batting needs (an uncluttered mind) ahead of his interests in captaining the side.
But this is an issue for another time. Right now he must concentrate on winning at Headingley.
First, get the bowling side right.
Peter Roebuck has made the suggestion, which makes sense, that Peter Siddle and Nathan Hauritz should be dropped for Stuart Clark and Andrew McDonald. Admittedly, Hauritz has taken ten wickets. But he has leaked runs.
Australia needs to put pressure on the run-scoring, as well as taking wickets. This is where McDonald comes in, as he did in South Africa.
I’d restore Philip Hughes to the opening spot, too, on the grounds that he scores his runs quickly and could set Australia up for a big total. But this is not going to happen.
So the batting line-up stays the same, with the possibility of Brad Haddin returning.
The most important factor for Australia is to set fields that can generate pressure and catches.
And for Ponting to be more reactive as a captain than he has been so far during the series.