Why Australia can win the Ashes 5-0 -- Part 3

If, in the past ten years of cricket, there has been a better puller and hooker of the short ball than R.T. Ponting, then it is only a ten-year-old kid named Dave who spends all his time swotting sixes on StickCricket. Watching Ponting rock onto the back foot to deposit a ball behind square imbues one with a sense of precision. Footage and first-hand accounts of Sir Donald Bradman playing the same shot invites wonder: wonder that his feet could move into position so quickly, and in this respect The Don is said to have George Headley as his companion up on the dais. Footage and tales of Sir Vivian Richards conjure up thoughts of fearlessness, hooking and pulling without flinching, inviting the next ball to be faster and shorter, and so it was, and invariably hit further. But then, Richards didn’t have to play against his own pace battery of Holding, Roberts, Marshall and Co. Seeing Matthew Hayden pull, more often than not on the front foot was to see sheer muscle and power. But with Ponting, the shot conjures up a certain clockwork regularity. Ball short, rock back, swivel around, thank you very much guv’nor.

It has been said that Punter is going through a losing streak at the gaming tables when pulling. Most probably, but given his string of successes with the stroke over the years, a small nadir was inevitable. There are the nay-sayers who talk about the failing of the eye to detect whether the ball is short enough to be ‘on’, and these people would have you believe that Ponting is actually 55 and not twenty years more sprightly. These swindlers would say that Ponting’s pull will never regain the Midas touch. Perhaps this argument might have some weight in the debate as to the leading run and century scorer after the retirements of Tendulkar and Ponting, but that is a story for another day — and is getting more tiresome each time we hear it. No, I am concerned about his role in the forthcoming Ashes series.

Yes, he is due for a big score: granted this in itself matters little in the build-up to the Ashes. Ponting in 2010 is not like Taylor in 1998 and nor is he like Waugh in 2003 (although, interestingly enough, both averaged more than 50 in their last 20 Test outings. Tubs’ 334* is an average booster if ever there was). It is difficult to imagine the negative thoughts towards his batting had Australia continued the dominance of the Steve Waugh era.

Jeff Thomson has no qualms with decrying Ponting’s captaincy as ‘ordinary’ and that his approach to setting the field belies his gambling cognomen. The days are certainly passed when scoring 500 runs and then throwing the ball to Messrs McGrath and Warne guaranteed a hefty victory inside four days.

Now Ponting needs to nurture the young blood of the side, while doing all those basics in the captain’s manual: regularly rotating the main bowlers, and the ends at which they bowl, chopping and changing field placings, and venturing into the unexpected (throwing the ball to M.E.K. Hussey, or more dramatically, M.J. Clarke in Sydney 2008) — but he has to learn these tricks, not merely revise them, having had no need to resort to them in the past.

Expect then, to see the gambling nature come out in his captaincy in Australia.He joins Billy Murdoch in a select group of two Australian captains who have handed back the Ashes in England. This, as judged by all and sundry after his comments in the aftermath of the 2009 Ashes series, displeased him greatly.

In familiar territory, and away from the Gary Pratts of this world, it is a fair bet that Ponting will be much more aggressive in the forthcoming series. For the first time in years we will have an old-fashioned combination of leg-spin and off-spin by two front-line bowlers. He also has the option of tossing the ball to all barring himself and Haddin, plenty of world-class slip fielders, and excellent short-leg in Simon Katich, and a genuine allrounder in Shane Watson. He will be cutting and thrusting with order and the odd dash of randomness. Like most skippers, when he is making the right decisions and the team is playing well, he will come into his own while batting. That line of reasoning doesn’t apply to a Courtney Walsh, but when you take 500 wickets you can bat as you damn well please.

Lastly the footwork of Ponting deserves some comment. I have seen no cricketer make a larger stride forwards to a ball short of a length. As a short man Ponting is unable to retain his right foot on the ground if he wishes to prod necessarily far forward. Tendulkar, granted is even shorter, but plays more on his toes and relies less on mammoth strides down the wicket. There have been some slight problems with this in the past, in particular lbw dismissals to a swinging ball — although his maiden innings, four short of a century, was terminated by this striding forward without regard to the ball’s missing a second set of stumps. But Ponting ensures that balls which are verging on being pitched short are met on the drive.

He is a cunning customer of course: if the balls short of a length are hit on the front foot then Joe bowler tries to pitch shorter still. Then we see the clockwork motion of rocking back, swivelling and pulling for four: Punter, the gambler’s gambler, has figured out how to beat the house.