Ricky Ponting and the chamber of secrets

There are not many times Ricky Ponting has been left speechless over his long career. But when a reporter put it to him after the Perth Test that he had spent the previous evening in a hyperbaric chamber in an effort to boost his recovery from an elbow tendon injury, Ponting feigned surprise.

"Was I?" he replied. The cogs were turning and he was trying to work out how that little secret might have escaped the dressing-room. The journalist responded: "Apparently. Justin Langer said it on the radio this morning".

For a few seconds Ponting was genuinely lost for words. Eventually, he couldn't keep up the charade, and conceded with a smile: "Yeah, I was actually. Secret's safe with Lang, isn't it, by the sound of things."

Langer is the Australian Test team's batting coach but during his home Test at the WACA he was doubling as a special comments man on the ABC radio commentary. Ponting wasn't thrilled that his treatment was made public, but took it all in good humour. "I'll probably have a few more of those treatments over the next couple of days and if you want to know if I am, just ring Lang and he'll tell you."