Langer fights to crack swinging dilemma

Justin Langer admits Australia's batsmen haven't cracked the troubling reverse-swing puzzle, but Ricky Ponting has confirmed the side has developed strategies to nullify its damaging effects. England's pace bowlers have mastered the movement of the older ball and have embarrassed Michael Clarke and Simon Katich into leaving deliveries hitting their stumps, and confused the rest.

Langer said the movement caused the batsmen to change from instinctive play to using a shorter back-lift as they coped with the restricted scoring options. "We definitely haven't cracked it," Langer said in the Courier-Mail. "There is a lot of discussion going on. This is like a new little puzzle we have to solve. When we do crack it, it will be a very satisfying feeling. I think we are getting close."

Writing in his column in The Australian, Ponting said his players were working hard in the nets to improve. "We've already come up with some strategies to make sure we practise against it as much as we can," he wrote. "If you look at when most of the wickets have fallen, it's been between overs ten and 30 which is just after the lacquer comes of the ball and it starts reversing."

Ponting said it was important to survive the early stages because after that "it's not so bad". "The hardest thing about facing reverse-swing bowling is the pace it's delivered at because then it tends to swing a lot later," he said. "When it's swinging late at 145kph it's pretty difficult to play and we've only got one guy - Brett Lee - who can do that. We have to make sure we're bowling him at the right times."