Powerful Tait finds his place

In The Age, Chloe Saltau profiles Shaun Tait, who grew up in a small town in South Australia and still has that country aura about him.

The new spearhead of the Australian attack is stretched out on the turf of the Antigua Recreation Ground, home of one his fast bowling heroes, Curtly Ambrose. He is as natural and as uncoached as a modern international cricketer can be. As Phil Tait [his father] puts it, "he's not up himself".

It seems there was a lot of fast-bowler aggression in Tait from a young age.

His dad recalls an under-12s game abandoned after Tait broke the cheekbone of an opponent, and a week-long suspension from school after a kid picked a fight with him, and paid the price with a busted eye-socket

Ricky Ponting’s column in The Australian focuses on Matthew Hayden’s meticulous planning. He says Hayden showed a healthy respect to Makhaya Ntini, Jerome Taylor and Daren Powell but targeted other bowlers in his two most recent centuries.

Robert Craddock reports in the same paper that Glenn McGrath believes Shane Watson has the ability to be one of the great allrounders in modern cricket.