In the shadow of Ponting

Ricky Ponting’s absence for Australia’s second Test against Sri Lanka – he flew home for the birth of his second child – is an opportunity for the younger generation to display their credentials for Test cricket. In the Age, Peter Roebuck runs the rule over those next in line.

David Warner deserves his chance. His career has been held back partly because NSW has mishandled him and partly because he has suffered from hotness in the head. Nevertheless he is only 24 and averages 53 in state cricket. Of all the younger batsmen he had the tightest technique, just that his career threw him into another world and gradually looseness crept in.

In many respects Warner is the first product of the new cricketing age. It has been his fate to be denied the traditional batting education and instead to be encouraged to hit hard and often. Fame and fortune smiled on every six.