WACA Ashes Test Day 2 Observations

It Ain't About Skill Sometimes
Predictably England were humbled and the Aussies stormed back to control the match.
Strauss was really unlucky to be given out, but as a wise man once said, "it's better to be lucky than good". Other than that, it was business as usual as Australia turned the thumbscrews.

Let's face it, we're all thinking it. And, despite the caution voiced by Australian players interviewed after their fightback at the Waca, the Australian papers appear to be too.
"Ponting has one hand on the urn," says Trevor Marshallsea in the Sydney Morning Herald. He puts his finger squarely on the England problem again all too apparent in the wake of Monty Panesar's first day heroics. "By now, no one should doubt modern England's ability to produce a great day's cricket," Marshallsea writes. "It is their failure to string a few together that is the problem and that, by the end of this third Test, should have cost them their hard-won Ashes. In Perth, the tourists finally got their team right and revelled in the five wickets of Monty Panesar, which reduced Australia to 244. But by late on day two, much of the spinner's work had been undone."

Here's an interesting article on Ponting penned by Rod Marsh.

If I had to make a comparison between Ponting and anyone else in the history of the game, I'd go for Viv Richards, which says something in itself. There are technical similarities with Richards. Ponting gets his front leg down the pitch early and sometimes he plays across it, opening up the leg side. And, like Viv, he hooks and pulls brilliantly, very often off the front foot.

That planting of his front foot down the pitch can be regarded as a technical deficiency. He sometimes falls over to the off side, but even that can work to his advantage. It means that sides will bowl straight to him at the start of his innings in the hope of getting him leg before wicket, as occurred in Perth on Thursday. That sometimes happens when something is not quite right, but 99 per cent of the time he will soon be cracking those straight deliveries wide of mid-on.

It wouldn't surprise me if he kept going for another six or seven years, scoring as heavily as he is now. His fielding can be a good barometer of his cricket. He's working hard at it now; he loves fielding and he puts himself in the key positions, either in the circle or at second slip. As captain, he is not interested in hiding himself. Provided he keeps practising — and I'm not sure he did during the most recent World Cup — he hits the stumps more often than anyone.

Well worth a read.