Bellerive records

When you start your Test career with a 151 in fairly dramatic circumstances, you're probably not thinking that it will be five years before you improve on that mark. In contrast, it has only taken the Australians until the 15th day of this year to put together a partnership bigger than any they could manage in the previous decade, a fact less surprising than that one of the partners on that occasion was Jason Gillespie.

After the dearth of Aussie centuries as the summer began, who would have thought the last Test would feature a Ponting double-ton on his home turf? He has certainly capitalised on a couple of chances, and it seems his biggest worry at the moment would be deciding when to declare.

An umpire's final decision?

In the past, I haven't thought much of Ricky Ponting's captaincy at all. In what I have managed to see of this series, however, I haven't had any problem with his strategies. In contrast, his behaviour after the first referral regarding Chanderpaul was ridiculous. I have in the past agreed with his comments on cameras and low catches, but they just make his response to the not out decision even more ridiculous.

Ponting says that the referral system was meant to get rid of things like that, presumably meaning mistakes that are 'obvious'. That is a stupid idea - it was only meant to get rid of mistakes that were obvious to the tv viewer with certain technology. As well as being largely motivated by television, the system restricts the third umpire to approved technology, rather than giving them everything that might be provided to the spectator at home.

It is quite clear that a mistake could be 'obvious' to those on the field without being obvious to the cameras, or even being wrong. In this case, I think it is more likely that there was an edge than that there wasn't. However, the replays and hotspot views shown did not provide enough to justify a conclusive umpire's decision, and certainly not enough to justify overturning a decision in the current framework. I do question why both hotspot cameras were not used, but I believe there will always be some level of ambiguity, if not error, not matter how good the technology is.

Ponting should have accepted that the cameras did not provide the evidence of what he thought he heard and saw. Instead, as some predicted, the review system has provoked even stronger dissent. The match referee should haul him up on a charge of dissent, or at least stupidity. Of course, off the field, more interest has been shown to the later appeal, when the umpire's not out decision was overturned. I still haven't seen footage of this, but form all accounts it was a strange decision by third umpire Asad Rauf. Most disturbing are the rumours circulating that this prompted the withdrawal and retirement of umpire Benson.

For an umpire to not complete a test for reasons other than relating to health is a very big deal. It is hard to believe the "suggestions" received by the Sunday Times (and of course repeated by Cricinfo, Fairfax media and others as facts reported by the Sunday Times) that Benson's departure from Australia was motivated by these incidents, rather than existing health problems. I don't see why the issues as reported would require a visit to hospital rather than a phone call to his long-standing doctor. Obviously the suggestions came form somewhere, but I can't see how it could be true that he was upset most by the second decision, unless there is much more to the story in the umpires' room.

Before the talk of retirement, I'd have hoped the umpires' coach would take a careful look at Benson's performance in Adelaide. In any case, he is no stranger to criticism of his decisions. However, it seems to me that apart form ill health, I suspect it is not he that should be the centre of the attention at the moment.

Putting the Ashes to rest

This was a series which drew interest because of a long history and the fact that neither side was dominant. The cricket itself was a succession of bat-fests, interspersed with some short spells of impressive bowling and/or poor batting which made up the few severe first innings collapses which almost completely decided the fate of the urn. This is the pattern of a lot of international cricket recently, simply adding evidence for the idea that the last ten years has not seen a glut of strong batsmen, but a lack of quality bowlers and/or good conditions for bowling.

Hilfenhaus and Strauss had a good series. Swann did his job. Batsmen such as Clarke and North did well, but mostly when matches were virtually decided. Watson coped well with opening, but doesn't seem a realistic part of future plans in that position, and given that he was in the squad as fix-all, his time with the ball counts against him. Flintoff did enough to have a positive farewell, even if he is still as annoying as ever.

There are calls for Ricky's head. Some have quite rightly pointed out that he isn't really to blame for the result. I don't see why the calls increase after this second Ashes defeat. A captain aims to win, but can only be judged on how well they get the best out of their team and the opportunities afforded. There were enough reasons to question whether Ponting was the best man for this job well before Australia started the recent string of losses. I'm not talking about the trouble in January 08 - the claim that this years' Aussies are 'nicer' doesn't let him off on the basic cricketing aspects of captaincy. Neither does the suggestion that he has done better when given players more suited to his leadership, as in South Africa. Either choose the captain who is best able to lead any of the whole teams he is likely to be part of, or choose a captain indepedently for each series. Picking a skipper and then basing a team round him has, rightly in my opinion, not been the Australian way, whatever occurs in other parts.

The only thing going for Ponting is that it is not the Australian way to play ex-captains, either. This can afford to change. He is not to blame for this loss, but he still isn't the best captain the team could have. The umpires are also not to blame - they were far from perfect, but neither were they particularly one-sided. Brett Lee's injury probably had more impact, and that is not blamable, but simply points to a lack of depth. The selection decisions, on the other hand, have both been questionable almost as long as Ponting's and have played a big part in the last couple of months.

One group of people, for me, did stand out. They weren't on the field, but I very much enjoyed MMM on SBS. Stuey, Mo and Damo were refreshing insightful without being too serious. I came to this conclusion even before they managed to include all my favourite main points when discussing the state of umpiring, and it was probably helped by the fact that I didn't hear the expected self-selection suggestions from Mo until the final day!

Does anyone miss the tri-series?

I'm sure Ricky Ponting doesn't. After all, recently (not) making the final series seems to have been the deciding factor for the selectors when determingin whether the ODI captain stays or goes - not jsut from the captaincy, but from the team. Maybe he's safe, now that it's gone.

New sights and centuries

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.

Slow and steady doesn't win the race

It looks like the Aussies might have let the trophy get away from them in the last session yesterday, and I put the blame firmly at Ponting's feet. Not because he tried to keep the over rate up, though, but for letting it slip to start with. Bowling the appropriate number of overs in a day is a requirement of the playing conditions and code of conduct. Deliberately wasting time can and should be considered cheating. Those who have observed the Australian team's fondness for other "sharp practices" would reach the conclusion that he bowled part-timers not for the sake of the spirit of the game, but so that he would not be banned. But surely such motivation is the point of the penalties in the first place. Would we be happy if players decided to run on the pitch near the end of a game, because the series was in the balance and the next game didn't matter?

So, some questions, firstly for the Australian selectors:
Can we please keep Ponting as a batsman, and choose a captain who doesn't spend an eternity making each (usually bad) bowling or fielding decision? The over rate issue might suddenly disappear!

And for the ICC:
Why aren't other dodgy practices mentioned in the code of conduct punished as rigorously as over rates?

And for the MCC with the ICC:
Is there a way to sensibly implement penalties in a way that affects the match in question, to avoid any conflict between following the rules and winning the game? It hasn't been done with over-rates, and the ball-tampering rule suggests that it can't be done well.

Quite a punt

To me, the real connection between the words "boxing" and "sport" is the cricket Test match at the MCG. Australian captain Ricky Ponting has some views about how the selectors should pick the team this year. "Old Testament-like" floods or not, I think they will miss Stuart MacGill. But apparently Punter has picked a retirement date already, too and the reporters say he "will retire with every batting record in the game." Ending up with a 100+ average definitely would be impressive!