One ball, many questions

The sixth ball of the match, delivered by Fidel Edwards, created a veritable trove of ambiguities and intrigues. Edwards moved the ball back into David Warner, the ball flicking pad, maybe bat and perhaps even stump on its way through to Carlton Baugh. West Indies appealed for caught behind and Marais Erasmus raised his finger, but before long Darren Sammy withdrew the hosts' appeal because Baugh had not taken the catch. Had Sammy waited until the umpires resorted to television replays he may have seen Warner depart anyway, for the vision revealing the absence of any bat also showed that batsman could have been given out lbw.

Shane Shillingford's first over of the Test caused plenty of eyes to narrow in on the Port-of-Spain pitch, to see how much spin and bounce would be on offer to the slow bowlers. Australia's best judges reckoned it worthy of twin spin, and Shillingford would back up their summation of the surface by turning the ball appreciably. Warner has not been entirely comfortable against the turning ball so far in his Test career, and when Shillingford tossed his fifth ball higher, Australia's opening batsman walked into a drive and snicked straight to slip.

The surface continued to assist Shillingford throughout a long and exacting spell. But his most notable delivery gave Ricky Ponting a fright on his return after lunch. Second ball of the afternoon session, Shillingford pitched an off break on a good length outside off stump. It failed almost entirely to bounce, forcing Ponting to jam down desperately in defence of his stumps and his pads, the edge trickling away and leaving all batsmen on both sides with an indicator of what they may expect later on in the match.

Kemar Roach blasted out Ed Cowan and Ponting in a swift spell opposite the parsimonious Shillingford either side of lunch. But to dismiss Ponting, Roach required the help of two team-mates in the field. A delivery angled into Ponting and moving subtly way touched the former captain's outside edge and flew through to Baugh, on the ground where he made his debut against Australia in 2003. However Baugh was unable to take it cleanly, the ball popping out of his gloves and rebounding to Sammy to claim it before it fell to the turf. Having been run-out in the first innings in Bridgetown then bowled by a shooter in the second, Ponting's been a little short of luck in the Caribbean and here his run continued.