Ponting glad to feel the rhythm again

Ricky Ponting is confident he has overcome the technical flaws that troubled him during the leanest patch of his international career. Ponting conceded he had been in a rut and had needed to try some new training methods to address problems with his trigger movement and balance at the crease, issues that contributed to a stretch of 33 Test innings without a century.

That drought ended last week at the SCG, where Ponting's 134 helped set up Australia's innings victory over India. It had been a century that Ponting could feel coming. Since the second innings in Johannesburg in November, he had made steady progress towards a big total, with scores of 62, 78, 5, 16, 62, 60 and then his Sydney hundred.

"I've made some progress on getting to where I want to be," Ponting said ahead of this week's Perth Test. "The biggest challenge for me with the technical flaws that I've been working on has been getting enough quality time in the middle and starting to feel that bit more free again and feel my rhythm starting to come back into my batting.

"The first 30 or 40 runs in Sydney last week I was probably still battling myself a little bit but at the start of day two was probably as free as I've felt in a long time, the way that I moved and hit most of the balls in the middle. I might have played and missed one ball, I think, on that second morning. When you're making as few mistakes as I did for the last half of that innings you can start to take some confidence from that."

One of Ponting's problems had been his initial stride across his stumps. His head was often not in line with the ball while he was looking to work straight deliveries to the leg side, which had resulted in a string of leg-before dismissals on the tour of South Africa. On that trip, he was trapped in front in the first innings of the tour match in Potchefstroom, and in the first three innings of the Test series, in each case before he had reached double figures.

"It was all about my initial movement and the balance, they're the only things I've been working on the last few months," Ponting said. "I've just done a few different drills that I've incorporated into my game that I've never had to do before.

"I was in a rut technically that I hadn't been in right through my career, so I had to have a really close look at things and break things down and try to find the best and simplest way to address it and fix it. I'm not sitting here saying I'm completely on top of my game but I know very well that I'm not far off."

Not that the innings in Sydney was typical Ponting. India's fast bowler, Zaheer Khan, said on Tuesday that the 134 lacked the usual Ponting flair, and that he appeared to have "become more of a grinder". It was not a description that concerned Ponting.

"There's more than one way to skin a cat," Ponting said. "You'd probably say the same thing about Sachin [Tendulkar], the way that he's been able to accumulate runs over the years, and someone like [Jacques] Kallis or [Rahul] Dravid. They're consistent run-scorers. I've had to work really hard on my game in the last few months and I've felt that I've made a bit of progress the last few weeks and been able to put up some good scores on the board."

Ponting will be aiming to improve on his record at the WACA when the third Test begins on Friday. The venue is the only one of Australia's six major grounds at which Ponting averages less than 55 in Test cricket, and it is significantly less: he averages 43 in 15 Test appearances in Perth. He has scored only one Test hundred there, against Pakistan in 1999.

However, runs are just part of what Ponting hopes to bring to the Australian side under the leadership of Michael Clarke. Ponting is often seen working in the nets with the younger batsmen, giving throwdowns and offering advice, and he believes he has a key role to play in helping Australia's developing top order - Ed Cowan, David Warner and Shaun Marsh have played 11 Tests between them - learn about international cricket.

"I think it's really important for teams going forward that they have the right mix of youth and experience," he said. "You've only got to look at some of the innings that have been played over the last couple of weeks: Hussey's 89 in the second innings in Melbourne and then his 150 in the second innings last week [in Sydney], two sixties from me [in Melbourne] and a hundred last week, they've been in pretty crucial times in Test matches.

"It must be really nice for Ed Cowan and Dave Warner and Shaun Marsh to get to spend a lot of time in the middle with Michael Clarke, Mike Hussey and myself. I think there's a lot we can teach those guys about how to face different bowlers or how to get through certain situations in Test matches and that's still part of my job now, to make sure I'm still doing the right thing by the young blokes."