No return to the WACA of old
Despite all the build-up the WACA pitch did not show too many glimpses of its fiery old self, Peter Lalor explains in the Australian .
Brydon Coverdale
25-Feb-2013
Despite all the build-up the WACA pitch did not show too many glimpses of its fiery old self, Peter Lalor explains in the Australian.
Oh, there had been talk that the good old days were back. Talk that curator Cameron Sutherland had found a way for men to wear moustaches and open-neck shirts without looking like somebody on the way to a fancy dress party. The curator has applied a few centimetres of the old soil to the top of the deck, but it is not the elixir of youth that all had hoped for. You can sew the hair back on to a balding man's head but it does not give him back his vim or vigour. Alas, it is 2008, there is no way it will be 1976 again.
In the same paper Mike Coward says Australia’s decision to play four fast bowlers was perhaps made due to some dodgy advice.
On the evidence before us, Ponting, Hilditch and the West Australians, have been duped. On Tuesday, former opener Justin Langer recommended Ponting bowl first. But after sighting the deck yesterday before presenting Chris Rogers with his baggy green cap, Langer abruptly changed his advice.
Peter Roebuck writes in the Sydney Morning Herald that India threw away their advantage with lame dismissals, while Ben Dorries in the Courier-Mail reflects on a day when everyone was conspicuously on their best behaviour.
Brydon Coverdale is an assistant editor at ESPNcricinfo. He tweets here