It looks like the South Africans won't have any trouble wrapping up the series today. This result is a great tribute to some fine performances. It's been great to see Duminy at the start of a very promising career. Steyn has been around a while longer, but with the strange nature of international cricketing scheduling, hasn't been seen playing tests against Australia before.
But there was something else we hadn't seen for a while - from Ricky Ponting. First the batting performance we'd been missing for a while, and then some captaincy of the level I'd never associated with him. It was a good move to give Siddle the new ball. Unfortunately, Lee didn't benefit from sharing it, and Ponting did no better than any other captains employing a depleted attack the next day. Whatever form Johnson and Siddle are in, Hauritz and the part timers are not serious support at the MCG.
However, captaincy worries didn't seem to bother Ponting too much, and he came out with another big innings, only almost upstaged by Mitchell Johnson. He fell just the other side of the century mark this time, and that's a strangely fitting place to end this, my 100th post on this blog.
6 comments:
I'm amazed how manhy commentators are mentioning Sydney in 1994. The traumatic memory of sitting in the O'Reilly Stand watching the final day unfold won't leave me for a long time, but expecting anything similar with the current bowling situation is a bit optimistic, isn't it?
Happy new year Jonathan. Maybe 2008 was meant to go. The new team and new year could do the trick.
hi JPD
Hi Blgnuyen...
Australia are missing a trick in not promoting Johnson up the order... He may well turn out to be a Watson type of lower middle order player.
I certainly think he's the closest to an Test "all-rounder" at the moment. I'm not sure that it's worth demoting Haddin, but it could be an oportunity to pick another bowler, rather than a batsman as I suggested in the next post.
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